Today I visited the Dutch Regional Police Forces Groningen. The triggering invitation said ‘Arresting criminals with Narrowcasting.’ Recently Groningen Police was in the news with a location based pda alerting system Eyeview, supporting the police officer on the street with a handheld knowledge based information system. I was pretty amazed to see how innovative this police force applies smartmobs technologies supporting the policeman on the street pushing timely information to do a better job .

Read the press release of June 5 for the details about this project

Dutch Regional Police Forces Groningen have implemented a new system to broadcast APBs via digital signage screens, PC screensavers and PDAs. The integrated system, provided by Netpresenter, resulted in seven arrests. Other police services using this solution include Liverpool’s Merseyside Police and Toronto Police Forces.

24/7, the system shows pictures, APB information and even video material of wanted and missing persons on big screens in secured areas in police stations, on the intranet and on officers’ PDAs. With the latter, GPS is used to offer location specific information. In the future, the system will also be showing APBs on PCs, as a screensaver or, with urgent information, as a pop up window. The system uses colour codes so officers can immediately see what type of message it is and what priority it has.