App-solutely apt
Police encouraging public to alert them via smartphones to reduce crime
By tomorrow, the country’s 11 million smartphone users will be able to report criminal acts, accidents and natural disasters faster, precisely and easily to the police, thanks to a new app. Police hope to reinforce crime prevention with the app, which relies on users as the eyes and ears of the force.
KUALA LUMPUR: Police are counting on the public to use smartphones to help reduce crime and alert them of anything needing their attention with a new app that makes them the eyes and ears of the force.
As part of an initiative codenamed the Volunteer Smartphone Patrol (VSP), the app will be launched on Police Day tomorrow, allowing a potential 11 million smartphone users in the country to send real-time photos or videos of criminal acts, accidents and natural disasters.
The new app promises to make it easier and faster to communicate such incidents than current call-based methods, besides adding more accuracy to the process since the location information is transmitted and users are pre-registered.
Senior Asst Comm Datuk Sun Teoh Tia of Bukit Aman’s Crime Prevention and Community Safety Department said if a user saw a road accident, for example, he could take a photo and send it along with the GPS coordinates in his smartphone to police.
“The information sent can also be on other issues like natural disasters that require action, such as landslides or fallen trees,” said SAC Sun, who is the department’s principal assistant director (Data/Analysis Division).
He said the system would generate a serial number for every alert sent by a user to identify the complaint.
“The information will then be categorised by state and channelled to the respective state police control centre.
“The control centre will then ascertain if the information needs immediate action or follow-up action,” he said in an exclusive interview in conjunction with the 210th Police Day celebrations.
The brainchild of Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the application will be officially launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
Members of the public can start downloading the free application from tomorrow at the Gallery of Malaysian Government Mobile Applications (GAMMA) website.
SAC Sun added that users would also receive feedback from the police once information had been sent.
“For things that require so, police response will be immediate,” he said, adding that the identities of app users would be protected.
He said they hoped that public co-operation with the force would be improved.
“Most people nowadays have smartphones. As Malaysia has among the highest smartphone usage in the world, the Government sees this as an opportunity to reinforce crime prevention efforts with the involvement of the community to assist police to take action quick- ly, accurately and effectively,” he said.
He said the VSP centred on “Community Oriented Policing” and a “Smart Partnership”.
“This is an initiative to improve the monitoring of criminal activities in the local community through the involvement of the public as eyes and ears of the police,” SAC Sun said.
He added that the VSP was an extension of the RakanCop programme implemented since 2004.
“Previously, with the RakanCOP programme, we could only send information using SMS as there were not many smartphones. Now the VPS application is an extension of that, so that people can send information, pictures or even videos using their smartphones,” SAC Sun said.
SAC Sun said the initial target for the application was 4.8 million users.
“For a start, we will automatically absorb some 600,000 members of RakanCop. We are also targeting some three million Rela members and another 1.2 million members of 1Malaysia for Youth (iM4U). Our fourth and last target will be the alumni of the National Service Training Programme (PLKN) 2.0,” he said.