Crowdsourcing… Criminals Catching?
This is a topic I’ve wanted to talk about a few weeks ago when the news came out, but we’ve had the server down last week and it kind of fell through.
So in May, the INTERPOL launched a program – Operation Infra-Red – to help out find 450 wanted criminals across the globe.
The thing is, with the deadline approaching (16th July) they released a call for for everyone out there to help out, and meant to leverage the power of the social networks ubiquitous in our everyday life.
Here’s what assistant director of Interpol’s Fugitive Investigative Support unit says about it:
“It is more likely that someone will recognize one these fugitives from a social networking site or a chat room than spotting them walking down the street, but no matter how a member of the public has the information, we would ask that they pass it on.”
As a side note, interesting use of video to pass the message along about the operation.
The results of the operation, released at the end of last week, were that they received information about 357 of the 450 fugitives, having arrested 131 (although no details about which numbers were before and after the social networks initiative).
This sure feels a natural step to the subject, as long steps are taken not to make people paranoid or invade innocent bystanders privacy.
In essence, it is the what the FBI’s Most Wanted List has been doing for years (and with the same goals), but taken to another level.
On this subject, the US government launched a few weeks ago their own app store (which can be found here), and amongst them you’ll find an FBI Most Wanted List app!
So what do you think, might this be one aspect of future criminal investigation / law enforcement / criminal catching?