Animesh Pathak's Crazy Ideas

Monday, October 03, 2005

Idea #4: Public crime reporting using cellphones

Acknowledgement: This idea is due to Prof. Gandhi Puvvada, who suggested this as a reaction to this incident.

Think of the scenario : a murder/mugging is happenning in a street in Mumbai. Normally, noone will come forward as a witness, so the police cannot book the culprit.

However, with the current ubiquity of cellphones with cameras in India, members of the public can easily and anonymously contribute to the booking of the offender.

Step 1: Take picture of act with camera phone
Step 2: Go to a well-known-website [to be launched] which hosts pictures of incidents.
Step 3: Create a "case" on the site and upload the picture.
Step 4: Done.

The site can be set up to notify the relevent police deptt and/or major news agencies upon upload of the picture. Also the site can be run by someone in the USA so that the person is out of reach of the desi hooligans.

So, what say people? As always.. your comments are eagerly awaited!

Luv and Luck,
-A

6 Comments:

  • nice idea..but how many ppl have cell with inbuilt cameras..how many ppl have internet access and knowledge abt the related sites..and how many ppl have got the guts to do it?

    "Also the site can be run by someone in the USA so that the person is out of reach of the desi hooligans..."

    well why dont u start? its easy to advice and difficult to implement.

    The idea is no doubt good...

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:27 AM  

  • you have an excellent idea!

    however you are addressing a relatively minor issue in the process of registering a crime. it is not the lack of evidence, it is the unwilling police.

    note, NO CRIME HAS BEEN REGISTERED in the bangalore beating case; even if one does, no one is likely to be interrogated/arrested; even if someone is, most likely it will be for the police to extort some money and formal charges (indictment/chargesheeting) will never be filed; even if charges are filed, the case will never go to trial; even if the case goes to trial, no witnesses would depose; and given India's <1% conviction rate, no will ever be punished (punishment in a civilized society is different from police arresting someone for pre-trial interrogation).

    If you have the inspirational ability, i.e. mobilizing people who value justice and make india civilized beyond the newspaper headlines, go for the idea of a hundred interlinked bloggers that _track_ never convicted crimes doggedly. yes, host in the US to escape India's silly defamation and contempt laws. the resources will be there.

    No prizes for guessing who the poster might be.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:34 PM  

  • No doubt a good idea. But the major problem is the misuse of this idea. People can make fake incidents and any false thing can be given a right touch. So For implementation purpose this is not the way, as i think.

    By Blogger Sabyasachi Devdutt, at 6:14 AM  

  • 1. There is already a version of this in place. Go to http://webapp.abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=seenon&id=3263240.

    2. There are a lot of cellphones in India, and a lot of them have cameras.

    3. About faking snaps, there can be a team looking for originality and faking. Fakes can be found out. But most importantly, the aim of such an endeavor will be to _scare_ people from committing crimes. [sad but true, this is the only way left.]

    -A

    By Blogger Animesh, at 4:21 PM  

  • One can become a CJ on IBN Live. I guess this idea is similar

    By Blogger Deepz, at 4:48 AM  

  • This is working fine as DTP (Delhi traffic police) facebook website. You take a picture of vehicle violating law and upload it on DTP facebook account and action is taken by them. Pushpendra

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:29 AM  

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