Human Beans: Safe + Mobile >Opportunities

On analysis of the research we have identified 6 key opportunity areas for the development of crime reducing mobile technologies. These opportunities provide a starting point for further, more focused user research, concept development, prototyping, testing and iteration

1 Making Crime Learning Compelling

People modify their behaviour based on experiences of what happens to them or to people close to them. Crime related programming on television continues to draw significant audiences as do reality tv shows. There is an opportunity to, via mobile technologies reality crime shows, and entertainment. To deliver more compelling anti-crime learning.

This could be a reality show that connects people with the real life experiences and coping strategies of people like them.

It could be a fictionalisation of current MO’s into an ebook format or similar

It could be a interactive game for children to teach them through experience how to take care of themselves, without introducing paranoia.

2 Services that can provide personalised and local information

There is a wealth of disconnected and often generic anti-crime information. People are aware that they are at risk, but there is no definitive resource to find information on the coping strategies that are directly relevant to who they are, their concerns where they live and the way they live.

There is an opportunity for a service that delivers up to the minute crime-reducing information to a mobile personal device. This information should be tailored to the user needs relevant to who and where they are and should change as peoples lives change. Parents would subscribe their children when they first get a phone and they would modify it according to their needs as they move through their life. This is potentially a service for life.

The service could be an extension of existing services (such as the Bedford Trend Sheet) informing the public on crime trends in the area in which they live and the 'coping strategies' to adopt to deal with them. These services are currently delivered in print format and available online. Serving this information to a personal mobile device would allow this information to be personalised and location relevant.

A similar service could provide tourists, often at a particularly high risk, with local knowledge in their own language. Such a service might be provided by the local police or tourist board.

Any service offering crime reducing tips should be backed up by an accessible and definitive knowledge resource on personal safety, accessible from a mobile device. This might be provided by the police or by an organisation specifically concerned with personal safety - such as the Suzy Lamplaugh trust or the Karrysafe project

Personal information would be provided based on users would completing a personal profile / risk assessment similar to that at Karrysafe.com

Location aware technologies, such as GSM could help deliver information tailored to a specific location.

3 Rating street safety

The initiative ‘Secured by design’ has developed safety standard for buildings, there are safety standards for cars that can be compared to help you make safety informed decisions at time of purchase however there is no service that allows you to compare street with street in terms of safety.

There is an opportunity for a service that would develop new metrics to measure street safety and communicate them to people in a useful way. The metrics would be based on an amalgamation of new and existing data such as crime statistics, CCTV camera presence (Being developed by xxx foundation), quality of street lighting and the number of people on the street etc. A rating system run by an independent organisation could become the definitive ratings body equivalent to the Thatcham anti-theft ratings for cars or the Michelin guide for restaurants. Under performing areas would be encouraged to improve their ratings. A service delivered to mobile technologies would allow you to find local safety information when on the move and in unfamiliar situations.

4 Connecting people with people

Crime can be tackled through the building of community and social capital, through connecting people with people. This is the underlying premise of successful Neighbourhood watch schemes throughout the world. The semi anonymous nature of Mobile communication technologies can help build social capital and encourage sharing in situation where communities have become disconnected and neighbours don’t necessarily know neighbours.

There is an opportunity for a service that helps communities to share crime reducing information in situations where they do not necessarily know each other. This could be a technological augmentation of existing neighbourhood watch schemes. The provision of a service that allowed neighbourhoods to 'talk' in disconnected communities would be a powerful brand enforcing proposition. Such a system could be created with existing technologies.

If peoples communities are virtual then communication technologies could help connect people with someone to talk to in times of need more effectively.

Peoples ‘communities’ are disconnected and are better reflected in the list of last ten callers than the people that live around them. In time of panic the closest house is no longer the safest refuge. There may be an opportunity for a service to connect people with someone available to talk in their virtual community fast -when they ‘just want to talk to someone.’

Location aware technologies can enable services to keep people together spatially in sight of each other, safety in numbers. Weather that is members of your group or people in the street.

Communities of interdependence can exist for just one evening. There is an opportunity for a service using location aware technologies to help keep people together when they are out in groups, eg 18 year old men on a big night out or parents and their children on a day out in the park.

5 Permissive Surveillance

The debate continues as to the effectiveness of CCTV. Is effective in reducing crime or displacing it? Does it prevent crime or only aid in it’s detection? Does it protect or infringe privacy? Mobile video technology provides the opportunity for new kinds of surveillance that is personal and permissive. Potential users we spoke to during our research responded positively to the idea of a surveillance system that they could turn on and off and they knew was being monitored.

There is an opportunity for a surveillance/ tracking service that people could log in and out of when they felt at risk.

Could such a service act as a ‘badge of safety’

Could such a service run by an independent company act as a bridge to the Police, as the existing Cybertrack service for traveling sales people.

6 Improving police presence

A voice call is the only way of contacting the police in a time of emergency. After describing the situation it will still take time for help to arrive. (quote average time of call out) In confrontational situations which our research shows are entirely unexpected and difficult to interpret calling the police does not make immediate sense.

To call them is time consuming and shows to any potential attacker that you feel at risk.

The crime may not occur and therefore you would be wasting police time.

Response cannot be instant and the situation needs to be addressed immediately.

There are opportunities to explore how mobile technologies, in particular video technologies might:

Provide new ways of contacting the police, that are faster, might alert them with out a conversation and are permissible to use when a crime may not be occurring. Such a service might learn from front line services offers such as NHS direct or from the Metropolitan police’s community officers, where people with a lower level of training (community officers, nurses) can provide useful and valuable advice referring people to more specialised services (police, doctor) when appropriate.

New ways for the Police to be ‘present’ Can a police officer on a video phone offer an ‘instant diffusion’ service. Virtual presence. does and officer always need to be there in person does

Next > Concepts

hello@humanbeans.net