Can't hear the sirens? Knobble evildoers with your massive integer A scheme to help deaf and hard-of-hearing people call the cops has been named as one of three finalists in a government-sponsored big data competition. A trio of projects have made it to the final of the criminal justice section of the Open Data Challenge Series, which invites ideas on how to solve society's problems using big …
I remember seeing an early prototype of this one.
The stolen bicycles database looks like a great idea, though I hope that it won't be set up as yet another scheme to profit from crime.
A good few years ago I'd suggested something similar, both to the regional plod HQ and to the Operation Bumblebee team. The idea was to have a simple, freely available database front-end for owners to collect/store details and serial numbers in a consistent format. These could then be handed over in the event that a theft occurred and merged into a national list of hot items. I'd even offered to give them a free computer to store the data: a 386, which at that time was jolly whizzo. (Yes, it was some while ago. )
More recently I again tried to interest plod, at the time when Bill Cash and a few other MPs were trying to clamp down on street markets and to close down car boot sales.
In my naivety I had failed to realise that public benefit doesn't actually count for much. While those in the front-line services may be doing their very best, if there isn't any money to be made from crime prevention or mega-kudos then there simply isn't going to be any interest either from the insurance industry or from public service organisations.
Jaundice aside, it's good to see that the idea of Open Data is being promoted.
then uses the open database to see if the bike or laptop or whatever else that has been stolen , to check if it's been reported as stolen yet , as in not everything stolen ends up on a register as most people will probably not be able to find there receipt from 2 years ago for that bike , or 3 years ago for that laptop thats been sent to the accountant for 2010's finances. how many queries of stolen goods before you get asked why do you keep asking about stolen goods ?.
as an idea how about making it mandatory to fit gps trackers to the frames of all bikes in the central tube of the frame ? it's not like you can not take the bike outside , if stolen it will report not only its current position but its data track for the last two weeks its been missing, can even take power directly from the dynamo for the lights , now mr plod can go and take said nicked bike back from said thief or fence , sure you can cut the frame in half to destroy the gps unit to prevent tracking, but that might hurt the resale price of said stolen bike if you have to cut it in half, what do you think ?
carsales.com.au have had their own version of "Total Car Check" for years, they call it CarFacts. The very useful REVS Check has been going even longer, I think a couple of decades? I'm amazed it has taken so long for the UK to catch up with such an obvious idea.
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