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Pike, Graham; Zhang, Min; Elphick, Camilla; Bandara, Arosha; Philpot, Richard; Stuart, Avelie; Price, Blaine; Levine, Mark; Walkington, Zoe; Frumkin, Lara; Havard, Catriona; Strathie, Ailsa and Nuseibeh, Bashar
(2024).
Abstract
Ubiquitous and pervasive digital technologies, including social media, routinely record the lives of many citizens. Although location tracking, images and direct reporting can be extremely useful to the police, these tend to treat the public as a ‘sensor’, providing data that is requested or harvested by law enforcement. This level of public engagement can often be quite different to the way that many citizens want to engage with the police, which can be characterised as ‘websleuthing’ (members of the public attempting to solve crimes online, often through social media). We developed a model of Citizen Forensics incorporating these different types of police/public engagement and explored the benefits, such as building trust, and challenges, such as the need for specialised skills, in designing multi- directional channels of collaboration. We also explored what happens when the ‘sensor’ and ‘websleuth’ approaches collide, including issues such as ‘how should the police question a witness who thinks they have already solved the crime on social media?’. Employing a scoping review of digital applications and experiments using the eyewitness identification paradigm, our results suggest that more needs to be done with regards to digital police/public engagement to support empowerment and inclusion and avoid privacy breaches and vigilantism. In addition, policing guidelines for obtaining evidence from witnesses should not treat exposure to passively received old (print, TV) media as the same thing as an active engagement with new (social, online) media.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
