Inspiring CitizeNS Participation for Enhanced Community PoliCing AcTions

Project Information

INSPEC2T

Grant agreement ID: 653749

DOI 10.3030/653749

Project closed

EC signature date 28 April 2015

Start date 1 May 2015

End date 30 April 2018

Funded under

• Secure societies - Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens

Total cost € 4 911 548,75

EU contribution € 4 911 548,75

Coordinated by

KENTRO MELETON ASFALEIAS
Greece

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - INSPEC2T (Inspiring CitizeNS Participation for Enhanced Community PoliCing AcTions)

Reporting period: 2016-11-01 to 2018-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The INSPEC2T project developed a social media environment to enhance the community’s engagement with authorities for the benefit of citizens’ security and wellbeing. The solution delivered a set of tools designed to foster and promote collaboration between citizens and Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) using new technologies and modern practices. Citizens, NGOs and other Community Policing (CP) stakeholders interacted with authorities using the INSPEC2T tool. The developed platform, which is a modernized, social-media-like communication platform, enhanced the participation of citizenry in CP. Citizens were involved in a number of CP related activities ranging from incident reporting, confirming reports, providing additional information and responding to requests for intelligence. The interaction with INSPEC2T empowered communities to initially identify and implement solutions to local problems and subsequently to influence strategic CP priorities and decisions.
The project reached out to more than 2100 CP stakeholders using online surveys and focus group discussions. The project partners promoted the online surveys exclusively using social media channels and electronic communications. The surveys were conducted between 8/2015 and 1/2016.
An overview of the INSPEC2T solution and its components is illustrated in Figure 1. The police mainly use the Secure Portal to manage all incoming information. Citizens use both the Public Portal and the mobile app to submit incident reports, interact in online communities and actively help police. Citizens communicate with CP officers through chatting, calling and texting. They are alerted on warnings and critical situations. A Training Simulator has been developed to support training of police officers.
The first version of INSPEC2T was piloted in Belfast, in 4/2017. CP Officers from Police Service Northern Ireland participated in the execution of scenarios. The second pilot, took place in Egkomi, Cyprus in 5/2017. The third pilot took place in Valencia, Spain.
The interaction with end users, involved in the first testing phase, provided feedback, suggestions and recommendations to further develop and modify the solution. Following a development cycle where the solution was modified and enriched with new functionalities, two further pilots were conducted. The fourth pilot took place in Groningen, Netherlands, in 9/017 and lasted 9 weeks. In 10/2017, the system was demonstrated at the Next Generation Community Policing Conference in Greece. The fifth pilot took place in Preston, UK, in 11/2017. CP officers, involved also in the first pilot, tested the system and verified its evolution. As a result, the following functionalities were highly valued by participating stakeholders:
1.The use of a more modernised approach in how the police is contacted, using the Mobile app and /or Public Portal, as well as in the way incident reporting and management is carried out
2.The feedback provided on submitted reports status, which adds transparency to case /report handling and simultaneously elevates accountability of involved authorities
3.The organization of information in the system and the visualization of the submitted incidents status
4.The use of multimedia content in reporting (pictures, videos, speech recordings) and using a social-media-like environment; and
5.Picturing the location of an incident on a map is of great value to authorities and respondents, while participants appreciated the analytics and the safe map functions.
The submitted reports were intelligently processed in the background to assist INSPEC2T’s operators with their duties. One topic that was debated across all pilots was the processing of the submitted data and its compliance with national and EU Legal frameworks. Police officers are challenged on a daily basis with lawfulness of data provided for criminal justice purposes. The INSPEC2T solution implemented adaptable safeguards for data ageing, archiving and retention of submitted records.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Within the first 18M of the project, the achieved milestones indicated that progress was on schedule and, for some tasks, progress was ahead of plan.
During M19–M36 the work to achieve the project’s objectives and milestones continued. The technical team worked efficiently to develop and advance the INPSEC2T fully-fledged end-to-end community policing ICT solution. The consortium had a series of meetings to ensure that the solution that would be tested in each city, would fully address all local CP needs of the participants and that the assessment would be adjusted to measure end user expectations.
The main scope of the first three pilots was twofold. One was to demonstrate and validate the strategic objectives of the project and second to present a working solution which satisfied the majority of end user requirements and requested functionalities. In addition, the empowerment of communities through the facilitation and delivery of a more personalized service where citizens collaborated with the police in setting their CP agenda, was also tested.
The five pilots and the international conference demonstration involved more than 650 CP stakeholders which were offered the opportunity to interact with the developed solution. Their suggestions were consistent with the solution’s evaluation findings, which are the following:
The way of contacting the police using the Mobile app and/or Public Portal, as well as incident reporting and management using a modernised approach, enhanced Community and LEA cooperation for CP related issues.
The feedback provided on submitted reports status adds transparency to case/report handling and simultaneously elevates accountability of the involved authorities. Knowing the status of their submitted reports, at any time, is highly valued by the community members. Also, the organization of information within the system, as well as the visualisation of similar incidents are both enhancements that received positive feedback. In addition, reporting through the use of multimedia content (pictures, videos, speech recordings), the use of a social-media-like environment and the depiction of an incident’s location on a map was of great value to authorities and respondents, while participants appreciated the analytics and the safe map functions.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The submitted reports were intelligently processed in the background to assist INSPEC2T’s operators with their duties. Getting in touch with the Police using a Mobile app and/or a community portal is an enhancement. Incident reporting and management using available technology solutions added transparency and elevated the accountability of the involved authorities. The organization of information in the system promoted the collaboration between authorities and communities, while reporting through the use of multimedia content added clarity.
The differentiation of INSPEC2T versus other CP solutions, is that it comprises a fully-fledged end-to-end solution for CP and beyond, providing tools and services for all stakeholders involved. The INSPEC2T solution can be advanced and customised to allow differentiated deployment options per local/police authority needs and context of use. INSPEC2T adheres to the General Data Protection Regulation and supports reporting from both registered and anonymous users, while it adopts existing CP best practices and complies with a complex social, cultural, legal and ethical CP framework.

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