Car crime ‘fighter’ on skids
Hi-tech police tool glitch
A crimefighting tool championed by police - an online portal launched in January to help track stolen vehicles daily hasn’t been updated for weeks amid admissions of technical hitches.
The portal was touted by police for allowing the public to play a “crucial part” in assisting officers track down thieves amid spiralling rates of car theft in Queensland.
Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Chelepy launched it on January 17 inviting the public to help officers fight car crime.
“Information from the public plays a crucial part in investigations, and this gives the community greater tools to tell police the active movements of stolen vehicles and the actions of those behind the wheel,” he said at the time.
“If you see a suspicious vehicle, members of the community can utilise this web page, provide information to police and allow officers to take action.”
The portal listed information for vehicles reported as stolen, including make, model, colour, registration number and suburb from which it was taken.
A search function was also made available which allowed the public to search a registration number to confirm if a suspicious vehicle was stolen.
Organisational Capability Command Acting Assistant Commissioner Paul Hart said the page would be updated daily.
“The active stolen vehicle list has been about a year in the making and will be regularly reviewed and enhanced by our team, to make sure police can most effectively partner with the community,” Acting Assistant Commissioner Hart said.
However no new information has appeared on the portal since March 19, with a message informing visitors to the site: “Technical issues are preventing the updated data from being displayed here. We hope to have the issue resolved soon.”
A Queensland Police Service spokesperson said the portal had gone down after a software update and the problem was proving difficult to fix.
“Queensland Police Service (QPS) is aware of a technical problem that is currently preventing the display of updated data on the Stolen Vehicle page of the QPS website,” the spokesperson said.
“This issue has been traced to a recent planned upgrade, which unexpectedly affected the generation of the list of stolen vehicles.
“Although the QPS technical team rapidly identified the cause of the problem, devising a solution is taking more time than originally expected.
“QPS is actively resolving this issue and aims to restore full functionality to the Stolen Vehicle page as soon as possible.”
Stolen car offences in Queensland have almost doubled since 2017.