New phone app launched to help identify police CCTV images

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is asking the London public for help in identifying thousands of images relating to low-level crimes from across the capital using a new Facewatch id app.

The images will be made available via a unique mobile phone app design by Facewatch with images supplied by the MPS. The app has already been responsible for the identification of 29 people in trials held in the past two months.Facewatch id is now available to all police forces in the UK.

Facewatch id, available on BlackBerry, Android and Apple smartphones, provides a selection of images of unidentified people the police would like to talk to within areas selected by distance from a postcode entered into the app by the user. If an image is known to the viewer they have the opportunity to send information confidentially directly to the police using the app.

The service launched in London last week with over 2,000 images of people the MPS would like to identify. Facewatch id will shortly be including images from City of London Police and British Transport Police and will be rolled out across the whole of the UK over the coming months.

Facewatch, which also provides an online crime reporting and CCTV film and image upload system for the police and London businesses, developed the new app with the MPS. It has been sponsored by BlackBerry manufacturer, Research in Motion.

MPS Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, responsible for specialist crime and operations, said: “The MPS is determined to exploit the opportunities presented by CCTV to solve crime. The general public can support us in this – both by providing us with images and then helping us to identify those who are responsible for committing crime. This new Facewatch crime app helps people to do this by giving them the ability to identify those suspected of committing crime in their local communities.”

Simon Gordon, chairman of Facewatch Ltd – developers of Facwatch ID – added: “By using the very latest technology we have created a simple, easy-to-use and highly-relevant way for the public to assist in the huge job of managing the capital’s CCTV image database. The Facewatch id app runs off the same secure infrastructure running our free crime reporting system for businesses and is available free to any police force in the UK. The system will play its part in ensuring a safer capital for the long term and for the Olympics.”

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, head of the Visual Image Identification and Inspection Office of the MPS, said: “The Facewatch id application will help the police to catch more criminals and by showing that CCTV is working it will help to stop crime as well. The Facewatch image sharing system and online reporting service has already saved much police time and helped my officers to catch persistent criminals and prolific thieves – this new service extends the support that the company is giving to the police.”