Citizen Forensics
Lead Research Organisation:
The Open University
Department Name: Faculty of Sci, Tech, Eng & Maths (STEM)
Abstract
This project reframes key challenges that underlie modern policing in a socio-technical world; a world instrumented with mobile and ubiquitous computing technologies, in which many citizens and communities live, work and play, but which must also manage threats to their wellbeing and their rights. The project aims to support a new engagement between authorities (such as the police) and communities of citizens in order to better investigate (and in the long term reduce) potential or actual threats to citizen security, safety, and privacy. This includes both empowering the police by opening up new ways of citizens providing data in ways that protect privacy and anonymity, and empowering citizens by using these new technologies to also hold the police to account. We will be harnessing many of the so-called Internet of Things, Smart City and Smart Home technologies to encourage and allow citizens to help the police collect and analyse disparate data to improve public safety at both local and ultimately national levels.
The project will adopt a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on the disciplines of software engineering for ubiquitous systems, social and cognitive psychology, and digital forensics / policing.
The project will adopt a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on the disciplines of software engineering for ubiquitous systems, social and cognitive psychology, and digital forensics / policing.
Planned Impact
Engagement and impact in the proposed project are a substantive thread running through each work package and will span a range of disciplines. These include some of the more applied disciplines such as policing and digital forensics, as well as traditional disciplines such as social and cognitive psychology, adaptive systems, software engineering and human-computer interaction.
We will utilise traditional channels, such as journals, conferences and workshops for achieving academic impact. Our non-academic impact is distinctive in its focus to achieve high public impact. We will engage ordinary citizens, community groups, and the police in order to harness underutilised resources in the community to empower stakeholders to make communities safer, improve police efficiency, and to hold the police to account. We expect our impact to be measured by increased community safety perceptions, improved crime detection and conviction rates, and fewer complaints against the police.
We will utilise traditional channels, such as journals, conferences and workshops for achieving academic impact. Our non-academic impact is distinctive in its focus to achieve high public impact. We will engage ordinary citizens, community groups, and the police in order to harness underutilised resources in the community to empower stakeholders to make communities safer, improve police efficiency, and to hold the police to account. We expect our impact to be measured by increased community safety perceptions, improved crime detection and conviction rates, and fewer complaints against the police.
Publications
Elphick C
(2021)
Building trust in digital policing: a scoping review of community policing apps
in Police Practice and Research
Elphick C
(2021)
Digital Detectives: Websleuthing Reduces Eyewitness Identification Accuracy in Police Lineups.
in Frontiers in psychology
Levine M
(2019)
Rethinking the Bystander Effect in Violence Reduction Training Programs
in Social Issues and Policy Review
Zhang M
(2020)
Designing Technologies for Community Policing
Zhang M
(2020)
Finding & Reviewing Community Policing Apps in Asia
Description | Perceptions of police trustworthiness are linked to citizens' willingness to cooperate with police. Trust can be fostered by introducing accountability mechanisms, or by increasing a shared police/citizen identity, both which can be achieved digitally. Digital mechanisms can also be designed to safeguard, engage, reassure, inform, and empower diverse communities. We systematically scoped 240 existing online citizen-police and relevant third-party communication apps, to examine whether they sought to meet community needs and policing visions. We found that 82% required registration or login details, 55% of those with a reporting mechanism allowed for anonymous reporting, and 10% provided an understandable privacy policy. Police apps were more likely to seek to reassure, safeguard and inform users, while third-party apps were more likely to seek to empower users. As poorly designed apps risk amplifying mistrust and undermining policing efforts, we suggest 12 design considerations to help ensure the development of high quality/fit for purpose Police/Citizen apps. |
Exploitation Route | We are already drawing on this systematic understanding of police-citizen collaboration apps to inform the design of new technologies to support community policing interactions. We expect the findings to inform further research into the development and use of digital technologies for policing, as well as policing practice. |
Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Government, Democracy and Justice |
URL | https://www.citizenforensics.org/publications/ |
Title | Building trust in digital policing: A scoping review of community policing apps (final apps and scores) |
Description | Apps (either hosted by police or by third parties focused on policing or community concerns) that were perceived to have two-way communication, and were found on the UK version of Google Play between 1st and 4th July 2019. Measures and scores for the subset of apps in the final sample. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2020 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Recommendations to UK police forces on design considerations for digital policing apps. |
URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Building_trust_in_digital_policing_A_scoping_review_of_comm... |
Title | Digital Detectives: Websleuthing Reduces Eyewitness Identification Accuracy in Police Lineups (dataset).xlsx |
Description | This dataset was used for the analysis in the article Digital Detectives: Websleuthing Reduces Eyewitness Identification Accuracy in Police Lineups. The article explores whether searching for a culprit on social media affects eyewitnesses' subsequent identification accuracy in a police lineup. Results showed a significant association between social media exposure and lineup accuracy for the Target Present lineup (30% more of the participants who saw the lookalike on social media failed to positively identify the culprit than participants in the other conditions), but for the Target Absent lineup (which also included the lookalike) there was no significant association with lineup identification accuracy. The results suggest that if an eyewitness sees a lookalike (where they are expecting to see the culprit) when conducting a self-directed search on social media, they are less likely to subsequently identify the culprit in the formal ID procedure. The dataset includes demographics, response type and accuracy, and confidence ratings data for each of the participant conditions. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Presentation to UK police forces as part of Centre for Policing Research & Learning Festival of Impact, highlighting findings and leading to follow up engagement regarding the impact on police practice relating to eye witness testimony and use of social media. |
URL | https://ordo.open.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Digital_Detectives_Websleuthing_Reduces_Eyewitness_Identifi... |
Description | Presentation on Building trust in digital policing |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | A presentation to representatives of the policing member organisations in the Centre for Policing Research and Learning, reporting on the findings of your systematic review of community policing applications. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKrOEfUGdiE |