14 DAY TRIAL // Fighting crime is a lot easier to do when police officers don't have to go around knocking on every door until they find something of help. Those interested in lending the helping hand can now send video footage or imagery of crimes being committed that they have chanced upon directly by email, news.com.au reports. The evidence obtained this way will be admitted for prosecuting serious crimes from bashings, sexual assault and terrorism.
The program has been under development ever since 2005, when Assistant Commissioner Bob Waites thought something was needed to prevent something like the London terrorist bombings, or the Cronulla riots from happening again, or at least to punish those responsible for them. Police Minister David Campbell was quoted by the Daily Telegraph as saying that: "We want the public to help police by supplying their own footage or footage found online which may assist in convicting criminals. Police are establishing technology which will allow the public to provide such footage to them via the web. This is a cutting-edge project which, while in its infancy, is showing a lot of promise as a crime-fighting tool."
Criminals will find it increasingly difficult to conduct their devious actions in public due to the sophisticated mobile phone cameras that are now included with the handheld devices, which the Police hope will turn into 'weapons of justice'. All around the Australian state of New South Wales, access to tens of thousands of closed circuit television cameras has been granted to the men of the law, and the information coming from them is stored in a central database, so that any wrongdoings can be tracked at the touch of a button.
However, while the footage might be modified digitally, in court there will probably be need for the person who shot it for authentification purposes, so anonymous submittings will probably be disallowed.