UK cops to be kitted out with smartphones Smartphones look set to become the law of the land in Blighty, because it has been announced that most British police forces will be equipped with them by March 2010. According to the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), which supports the police smartphone rollout, officers spend 30 minutes less per shift in police …
Blackberry would be the ideal platform for this kind of project as it has built in encryption facilities and a decent physical keyboard. However protective hardened phone cases would be required due to the nature of the job, and perhaps extended batteries as some shifts can last up to 12 hours (or even more!)
Whilst it's a step in the right direction to be able to retrieve information from the various databases (which would lessen the load on busy radio control room resources, and free up the airwaves for more urgent matters), if certain 'on the spot' forms such as stop and search could be converted into electronic form (with perhaps a wireless printer if required), that would save even more time (and trees!)
So what your saying is that a technological device was successfully implemented/rolled out and it actually achieved a benefical target, in this case keeping more plod on the streets!
Has someone moved me to another country? We're talking about an IT success story with measured benefits/targets in the Public Sector, why hasn't it been plastered across every news rag across the country?
If every copper actually did the job they were paid for, instead of eating donuts then we wouldnt need smartphones full of confidential data floating about. How long till we hear of bent coppers looking up address data for Mr Drug Dealer at £500 a pop???
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1220546/Supercop-The-Sergeant-arrests-week-average-officer-does-year.html
"Bedfordshire Police – one of 30 forces which already boast smartphone-equipped coppers "
I think if 30 forces already have smart phones, doesn't that cover "most of the land" yet?
I'm not sure how many there are, but sitll 30 isn't exactly none.
Okay I count around 55 , including stuff like Transport and Miltary police.
I look forward to The Fuzz trying that round here: no doubt they'll be wandering about waving their smartphone at various angles trying to get something other than "112 EMERGENCY CALLS ONLY" on the display.
Meantime us local-vigilantes and FarmWatch types will be hunting the real criminals using our [ licensed ] VHF two-way radios and HF links to the MoD-types who conveniently live down the road.
If PC Plod wants to borrow my PRC320 to call for help...
As someone who knows our local plod, are issuing BlackBerry Pearls to all probational, neighbourhood (including the PCSOs) and reactive officers. They even have special holders so that it can be attached to their stabvests & have even seen officers checking their e-mails on them, although they tend to use them as mobiles.
The big question is how technologically knowledgeable are the officers, the answer is... I guesse that for yourselves.
AC, because someone would know many collar number.
i suspect they will get the phones that they could get breifings over the phone and put in reports etc etc
but in reality after spending thausands of pounds on development of databases and software
they get used to make phonecalls and nothing else
guess its like video phone'ing everybody wants to do it but just not in this reality !
I used to work for a company that was trying to roll out a mobile data solution for the police. I used to believe our own publicity that it was going to help the police be a whole load more effective. Then, one day I was standing in the City of London and watched how it took 15 police officers to arrest one guy for a misdemeanor and then stand around for 25 minutes chin wagging.
They may not be in the station but it doesn't mean they're working.
By El Reg as a description of the national High Tech Crimes unit.
But this is more in keeping with the name.
It's good to know the boys and girls in blue will have yet another blunt instrument with which (purely in self defense) they can club a suspect (or member of the general public as we civillians like to think of ourselves).
Still a few more squids to some lucky outfits.
Imagine carrying this in your pocket:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.4355
You'll be surrounded by confused cops (there is, incidentally, also a jammer for GPS signals so they may get lost as well). Not to mention the more powerful jammers you can stick in the car.
Ah, the future is bright - but it ain't gonna be because of Orange :-)
Here in the states all most every police dept has computers in their cars that can access data bases. Need to run the guys name, go to the patrol car and you can see if he has warrants or what not. Police on foot would just call it in and get response back. So why do the cops in the UK need to go back to the station house other than to book some one ??
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