NSW Police have never really seemed to me to be the most hi-tech force in the world but that’s starting to change. The boys in blue are leading the charge with a YouTube channel and Twitter presence in an attempt to embrace social media as part of their policing strategy.
The Police force is looking for help to nab crims by twitter-linking to CCTV videos and images of “people of interest” in various cases. The YouTube Channel also has footage of Police raids and the Twitter account is being used for things like public service announcements.
It doesn’t take a genius to realise that for some components of policing, particularly related to identifying people of interest, the social web has massive potential. It doesn’t even have to be a manual process, I mean how long before the Police try to friend everyone on FaceBook then use facial recognition technology to ID people through their accounts?
It should also be said that not only is the whole thing a step in the right direction for policing it’s incredibly addictive, too. Every time I see a tweet about a police suspect in my activity stream I can’t wait to jump on and see if I know them. The videos are also fun to watch. It’s kind of bland TV, rather than highly edited COPS-style programming, but for some reason the lack of hype in the videos make them even more watchable.
NSW isn’t the only Police Force that has embraced social media and it certainly won’t be the last. For now, though, it’s the best example I’ve seen.
The post NSW Police Giving “Social Policing” A Whole New Meaning appeared first on TechNation.
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Ayesha Khanna is Founder and Director of the Hybrid Reality Institute, a research and advisory group focused on human-technology co-evolution, geotechnology and innovation. She is a Partner at K2S Advisors which provides strategic and financial advisory services in smart and sustainable cities, technology and infrastructure. She is also a Faculty Advisor at Singularity University and directs the Future Cities group at the London School of Economics. A technology and innovation strategy expert, Ayesha has over ten years of experience advising clients and cities on scenario analysis, product development, digital branding and customer experience. Her clients have included Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, UBS, American International Group, and Deutsche Bank. Ayesha is frequently interviewed in the media and was featured by the New York Times. She is a regular speaker at industry, marketing, and academic conferences related to emerging technology trends and intelligent cities. Ayesha is the author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization (TED Books, 2012) and Straight Through Processing (Reed Elsevier, 2007), and was series editor of The Complete Technology Guides for Financial Services published by Reed Elsevier. She has written for diverse publications such as BusinessWeek, TIME, Newsweek, Forbes, Strategy+Business, and Foreign Policy. She also blogs on human technology co-evolution at Big Think. She is currently working on a book titled The Generative City. Ayesha is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lifeboat Foundation, a Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, on the Board of Advisors of Humanity+, and co-curator of TEDxGotham. In 2010, she co-chaired the Innovation Advisory Board for the New York City congressional campaign of Reshma Saujani. Ayesha has a BA (honors) in Economics from Harvard University, an MS in Operations Research from Columbia University and is completing her PhD in Information Systems and Innovation at the London School of Economics.
Parag Khanna is a leading geo-strategist, world traveler, and author. He is Director of the Hybrid Reality Institute, Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation, Visiting Fellow at LSE IDEAS, Senior Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and Senior Fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. He is author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization (2012), the international bestseller The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (2008) and How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance (2011). In 2008, Parag was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.” Parag is regularly featured in media around the world such as the New York Times, TIME, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal, and appears regularly on CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, PBS, and NPR. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, and Bachelors and Masters degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Born in India, Parag grew up in the United Arab Emirates, New York, and Germany. He has traveled to more than 100 countries and is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
