Best Practice in Police Social Media Adaptation
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Best Practice in
Police Social Media
Adaptation
Photo: David Adams
© 2012 by COMPOSITE Project Authors: Sebastian Denef5, Nico Kaptein8, Petra S. Bayerl11, Leon- ardo Ramirez5 This research is partially funded by the European Commission as part of FP7 in the context of the COMPOSITE project (contract no. 241918). More Information: www.composite-project.eu 5,8,11: See affiliations on page 7.
Contents
Summary:
Introduction:
Best Practice in Police The COMPOSITE Project 4
Social Media Adaptation Our Approach:
Methods and Limitations 8
This document describes best practice of European
Results:
police forces in adapting social media. The description
Best Practice in Police
of these practices stems from a workshop series and Social Media Adaptation 12
other events where police ICT experts met with aca-
demics and industry experts; and from a study of the Discussion and Outlook:
Learnings & Open Issues 30
Twitter usage of British police forces during the 2011
riots. Grouped in nine categories, we describe different
uses and implementation strategies of social media by
police forces. Based on these examples, we show that
there have been numerous ways in which police forces
benefitted from adopting social media, ranging from
improved information for investigations and an im-
proved relationship with the public to a more efficient
use of resources.
2 3The COMPOSITE Project Other work packages look into the ther research, the work package
Introduction: dissemination of research findings started out by mapping current
As part of the European Commis- and into the transfer of the results ICT trends bottom-up and identi-
Studying Organisational sion’s seventh framework pro- for training and consulting officers. fied social media as an important
gramme, the European research Additional information about re- issue1.
Change at European project COMPOSITE (Compara- cent project results are published
tive Police Studies in the Europe- on the COMPOSITE website at
Police Forces an Union) studies a broad set of www.composite-project.eu. Studying Social Media
phenomena to better understand Adaptation
The research project COMPOSITE investigates organi- organisational change in police The work package ‘Technology Ad-
forces. Over a period of four years aptation’, which provides the frame Social media have been defined
zational change in European police forces. One specific
(2010–2014), researchers from for this report, investigates those as “internet-based applications
part of the project focuses on changes related to the 15 partnering organisations (Fig- aspects of organisational change […] which [allow for] the creation
introduction of new information and communication ure 1, page 7), including universi- in police forces that are tightly and exchange of user-generated
technologies. A trend study revealed, among others, ties, institutes, corporations and linked to emerging information content”2. In only a few years, so-
police academies, compare cur- and communication technology cial media networks have seen
the topic of social media as a relevant topic of organi-
rent developments with police (ICT). Police forces, in all the partic- an unprecedented adoption rate
zational change. The broad adoption of social media by forces in Belgium, the Czech Re- ipating countries, are increasingly when compared to other media. As
the public and the increasing effect that this adapta- public, France, Germany, Italy, the confronted with the challenge of Erik Qualman pointed out: “It took
tion has in police work, requires police organisations Republic of Macedonia, the Neth- adopting a broad range of new ICT radio 38 years to reach 50 mil-
erlands, Romania, Spain and the in order to reduce the cost of main- lion listeners. Terrestrial TV took
accross Europe to define and implement strategies for
United Kingdom. taining out-of-date ICT systems 13 years to reach 50 million us-
social media adaptation. and to keep up with and make best ers. The Internet took four years
Beyond the context of this report, use of the rapid technological de-
COMPOSITE comprises work pack- velopment. A diverse set of legal,
1 Denef, S., Kaptein, N. Bayerl, P.S.,
ages to identify environmental po- cultural, economic and societal is-
et al. 2011. ICT Trends in European
licing opportunities and threats as sues increases the complexity of
Policing. ICT Trends in European Polic-
well as internal capabilities and technology adaptation for police
ing. COMPOSITE, Deliverable 4.1, Eu-
knowledge sharing capabilities. forces.
ropean Commission FP7 Contract No.
The research also includes dedi-
241918
cated work packages on structur- In order to identify pressing issues,
2 Kaplan Andreas M., Haenlein Mi-
al and cultural changes, the iden- to compare efforts by the police
chael. 2010. Users of the world, unite!
tity of the police forces and their forces and to and share solutions
The challenges and opportunities of
legitimation as well as leadership and approaches across Europe as
social media, Business Horizons, Vol.
practices in police organisations. well as to identify needs for fur-
53, Issue 1, p. 59-68
4 5Figure 1: COMPOSITE Project Consortium
6
7
1 2 3
to reach 50 million people. In less en that some countries in recent the public, as increasingly social 4
than nine months, Facebook add- years have been adopting social media changes the relationship 10 5
ed 100 million users.”1 This wide media platforms and gathered first between citizens and state agen-
adoption and the associated influ- experiences, while others consider cies. The on-going technological
8 9
ence on everyday live make social doing so, the topic provides a good change thus requires considerable 14
media a highly relevant and press- field for exchange of best practice. organisational and cultural chang-
ing issue for European police forc- Given that most activities in social es in police organizations—not only
es. Given the speed of develop- media take place in certain coun- in terms of work practices, but also 11
ment, social media are, however, tries only, the transferability of in terms of their relation with the
still a new topic for the police. these practices remains an open general public and the role that
question. It will be part of our fu- they have in society.
While all police forces are increas- ture research to understand if and 13
12
ingly confronted with social media how culture affects police work on
in daily operations, the ways and social media within the forces and Report Structure
speed of integration of social me- for the general public. 15
dia for policing vary greatly. As our This report is structured as follows:
trend report indicated, selected The ongoing discussions on social First, in the chapter ‘Methods and
police forces in some European media and policing touches dif- Limitations’, we will explain the
countries already make very ac- ferent aspects. On the one hand, process and rationale behind the
tive use of social media. In other police forces can use information workshop series and the extrac-
countries, police forces are still de- on social media to support their tion of best practice. We will also Project Consortium
ciding on policies how to deal with investigations. Here, existing pro- explain the limitations of our ap-
social media. To this day, there is tocols for police operations such proach and of our results at this 1 Erasmus-University 6 University of Durham, 12 Fondazione per la Ricerca
no common social media practice as surveillance, under-cover inves- point. Second, we will describes Rotterdam, Netherlands United Kingdom sulla Migrazione e sulla
for European police forces. Conse- tigations or forensic analysis are problems and the related practic- (Coordinator) 7 Sheffield University, Integrazione delle Tecnologie,
quently, we have seen a lot of in- currently being updated and rolled es that have been applied by po- 2 University Utrecht, United Kingdom FORMIT, Rome, Italy
terest in our research and demand out to cover social media. While lice forces and the ICT industry for Netherlands 8 Capgemini Telecom Media 13 ESADE Business School,
to us from the police for case stud- this kind of social media adapta- the topic of social media. Third, we 3 Police Academy of the Defense, France Barcelona, Spain
ies and best practice reports. Giv- tion requires training, it does not close this report with the chapter Netherlands 9 Centre National de la Re- 14 Masaryk University, Brno,
constitute a fundamental change ‘Discussion and Outlook’, to reflect 4 Fachhochschule der Polizei cherche Scientifique, Czech Republic
in the identity of police forces. In- on the identified practices and to des Landes Brandenburg, Paris, France 15 University St. Kliment Ohridski,
1 Qualman, E. 2009. Social Media:
stead, it extends existing practice put them into the context of on- Oranienburg, Germany 10 University Antwerpen, Skopje / Bitola, Macedonia
Fad or Revolution? http://searchen-
to a new field. On the other hand, going research within COMPOSITE 5 Fraunhofer-Institut für Ange- Belgium
ginewatch.com/ar ticle/2066771/
police forces need to engage the and beyond. wandte Informationstechnik 11 Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj,
Social-Media-Fad-or-Revolution [Re-
social media space to interact with FIT, Sankt Augustin, Germany Romania
trieved April 11, 2012]
6 7Trend Analysis potential workshop contents with the trend of social media adapta-
Our Approach: a number of proposals for each tion by police forces and the re-
Our first COMPOSITE report on trend. This list became part of a ports in public media about this
Methods and Limitations technology adaptation, ‘ICT Trends feedback form on our trend report aspect. In the following several po-
in European Policing’, provides the that we issued to the COMPOSITE lice academies invited us to partic-
In our initial trend study, we identified social media foundation for this work. Grounded end user board, on which police ipate in workshops and seminars
in a series of interviews with ICT officers from the ten participat- on this topic. We therefore decid-
as one of the most relevant topics for a workshop
experts with police forces and in- ing countries help to ensure that ed to start our workshop series on
series on best practice. Results from COMPOSITE dustry representatives, the report the project’s research addresses this topic and to combine findings
workshops in Germany, UK and France as well as other details six trends of technology questions relevant for the police. from these external events with
conferences and seminars across Europe formed the adaptation of the police forces. It On the form, we asked police offic- those from our own workshops.
lists the integration of IT systems ers to rank the trends in their cur-
empirical base to extract practices from. Additionally,
(1), the adoption of mobile com- rent and future relevance and to
a case study conducted during and following the 2011 puting (2), the use of surveillance rank the workshop topics accord- Workshop Series,
UK riots allowed to add insights from a situation where technologies (3), the application of ing the need for exchange on a Seminars & Twitter Use
British police forces used social media during a crisis digital biometrics (4), the crosscut- European level and the interest to during the 2011 UK Riots
ting issue of user acceptance (5) participate in the workshop. Evalu-
situation. By nature of its methodological design, this
and the emerging challenge of so- ating these forms showed that the Overall, in the period between
report is limited in terms of its validation and transfer cial media applications (6) as ma- topics of social media (i), the use June 2011 and April 2012, we or-
of best practice to other contexts. Our report thus func- jor topics of current and planned of mobile computing to support of- ganized three COMPOSITE work-
tions as a crayon box, a modular toolset, that allows police ICT projects. In the report, ficers in the field (ii) and the topic shops on social media adaptation
we discussed how these issues of integrating police ICT systems and participated in eight other, ex-
other police forces, researchers and industry to look
are relevant and thereby pointed (iii), had the greatest relevance ternal workshops, seminars and
for solutions that fit their particular needs best. to open issues for future research. and interest. conferences.
In order to deepen our understand- In addition to the feedback from The COMPOSITE events:
ing of these trends and in order to the end user board, we also re-
facilitate discussions with experts ceived requests from other police »» 1st Workshop on Social Media
to identify more specific issues to organizations that underline these as a Tool for Police Communica-
be addressed in the second half of findings. As a public download, the tion, June 14–15, 2011, Sankt
COMPOSITE, we organized work- trend report received wide atten- Augustin, Germany
shops on selected topics that bring tion and we count several thou- »» 2nd Workshop on Social Media
together police officers, industry sand downloads for the file, to this as a Tool for Police Communi-
people and academics. To decide day. This high interest was espe- cation, November 1–2, 2011,
on the topics, we created a list of cially driven by our description of Manchester, United Kingdom
8 9»» Workshop: Social Media at the For the COMPOSITE events, we United Kingdom took part in the experiences in research on ICT ad- more experienced (Manchester) in to better explain the issue of non-
French Police, December 6, sent out open invitations to our COMPOSITE workshops. aptation, organisational change using Twitter as a means to com- adaptation.
2011, Paris, France end user board, police forums and and within and beyond the context municate with the public.
other police contacts across Eu- The external events were organized of policing. We then also contacted For the above reasons, this report
Participation, presentation and rope. We specifically invited po- by the respective police schools the forces and officers mentioned is not to be confused with a step-
discussions in other, external lice officers of all ranks from police and organizations and ranged in the report to ensure factual cor- Limitations by-step manual on how to imple-
workshops and seminars: forces who either (a) already have from short trainings and a discus- rectness and that the published in- ment social media. Instead, we un-
had experience in and could report sion with young police officers (in formation is not classified and can Despite all this careful work, this derstand individual best practice
»» CEPOL Conference on Cyber- on their efforts for the specific top- Bremen), to a weeklong workshop be published. We further added to report and its results, by nature as subjective records situated in
crime, Cybersecurity & Social ic, or (b) were confronted with the with senior police officers from all our analysis of social media adap- of its methodological design, have their respective contexts that, be-
Media, Madrid, Spain, June 28- task to handle the issue in their across Europe (with CEPOL in Lis- tation by police forces a case study limitations. First, despite its title fore generalization, require further
30, 2011 forces and could present their bon). These events focused on the of the use of social media for po- of describing ‘best practice’, the research. At this point, a best prac-
»» Workshop “Social Networks” at challenges and questions. During different aspects of social media licing in a large-scale crisis situa- workshop setting did neither pro- tice that works in one particular
the Hesse State Criminal Office, the workshops, we asked partici- on a policing context and its differ- tion. Following our initial workshop vide the opportunity to validate the context might not work in another.
Wiesbaden, Germany, Septem- pants to prepare a presentation ent impacts on police work. on the topic in June 2011, we be- described practices in their imple- The presented practices indeed in-
ber 27-28, 2011. and also allocated time for group came increasingly aware of the so- mentation nor did it allow to thor- clude sometimes seemingly con-
»» CEPOL Seminar 95-2011 on So- discussions on shared issues For our analysis we took notes dur- cial media activities of a number of oughly define the criteria or means tradictory elements and show that
cial Media and Policing, October identified from these presenta- ing the workshops and collected police forces across and beyond of comparison that make a prac- police forces address common
24-28, 2011, Lisbon, Portugal tions. Participation was not limited participants’ presentations. We Europe. When, in August 2011, ri- tice a best practice. Second, the challenges in different ways. Our
»» Elective course “Internet and to police forces or countries rep- also captured materials and con- ots started in the United Kingdom, workshop setting did not allow for research, at this point, does not al-
Social Networks”, College of resented in COMPOSITE; instead ceptual sketches that were pro- we captured all messages on the an extended description of the en- low us to argue which of the prac-
Public Administration, Bremen, we aimed for bringing people to- duced during the workshops. To social network Twitter that were vironmental setting, thus making tices is better, or if there are uni-
Germany, November 9, 2011 gether from a variety of countries produce this report, we aimed at sent from the police forces in Lon- it difficult to judge and estimate versal solutions, at all. While this
»» International Seminar 4/2012, and backgrounds. As we could identifying patterns in problems don and Manchester as well as a how transferable and applicable might seem to contradict the idea
“New Media and Crime—Crime only partially fund the workshops, and challenges related to the three large number of messages that a given practice is in a different of best practice at first sight, our
on the Internet”, Police College, participants had to cover their areas of new technologies; and in were written by the general public context. This holds also true for goal, however, is not to present
Münster, Germany, January 19, own travel expenses. We there- the presented solutions that were and addressed to the police forc- the analysis of social media com- best practice that is universal but
2012. fore chose a number of different presented to address them. To es in the respective cities. While a munication during the riots in the rather present the variety in best
»» European Police Congress, Ber- places for the workshops distrib- improve the quality of analysis, publication on this analysis is cur- United Kingdom, as this case study practice applied by different forces
lin, Germany, February 14-15, uted in Europe to allow for partici- several versions of the best prac- rently pending, the results helped focuses on one particular country in different countries. Our report
2012 pation from different countries. In tice descriptions were discussed us to solidify our findings from the only. Finally, this report builds on thus functions as a crayon box, a
»» CEPOL Webinars, “Strategic total, almost 100 attendees from among the authors who reviewed workshops as in the data provided a selected empirical sample that modular toolset, that allows other
Impact of Social Media” and Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, and revised them based on their an empirical, real-world example of requires further validation and ex- police forces, researchers and in-
“Social Media in Policing” April Germany, the Netherlands and the different professional and cultural social media use by police forces tension to other contexts, in order dustry to look for solutions that fit
3, 2012 backgrounds as well as their own who had been less (London) and their particular needs best.
10 11Social Media as a Source police can benefit greatly from in- erators and distinguishes between
Results: of Criminal Information formation that is available on so- different levels of interference
cial media. Information about of- with the individual’s right of per-
Best Practice in Police fenders and crimes found online sonal data and intervening in tel-
has shown to be valuable for police ecommunications. The framework
Social Media Adaptation operations. Police officers from also differentiates between differ-
various forces across Europe re- ent types of inventory and usage
From our analysis result the following categories that port that in many cases criminal in- data accessed by the police to se-
formation can be found online that lect the applicable law. For police
describe best practice in police social media adapta-
without social media would have forces there is the need to further
tion: required a much greater investiga- educate police officers to perform
tive effort or would not have been investigations on social media.
»» Social Media as a Source of Criminal Information The information that is available available at all. Performing such While police officers, who perform
»» Having a Voice in Social Media on social media provides police investigations in social media ex- IT forensics or work in the field of
»» Social Media to Push Information forces a rich source of criminal in- tends existing policing practice. As cybercrime, are often organized
formation for their investigations. with the existing practice, all police in specialized departments on re-
»» Social Media to Leverage the Wisdom of the Crowd
These investigations in social me- operations take place in an envi- gional or national level, simple so-
»» Social Media to Interact with the Public dia require a legal framework. ronment that is highly regulated cial media investigations in open
»» Social Media for Community Policing Police forces transfer existing and follows legal procedures. To sources are about to become
»» Social Media to Show the Human Side of Policing regulations that apply to police op- perform operations on social me- standard, no-specialist activity on
erations in physical spaces includ- dia, police forces therefore trans- a local level, as the demand for
»» Social Media to Support Police IT Infrastructure
ing undercover operations to the fer and apply laws that define their such capabilities increases and
»» Social Media for Efficient Policing virtual space. While complex IT in- current work to the virtual environ- cannot be handled by IT specialists
vestigations are often handled by ment of social media. At the CEPOL alone. As police officers report and
We start each category with a short summary and then special departments on a regional seminar in Lisbon, Portugal and as becomes apparent from all na-
detail the principle with several examples. or national level, police forces cur- during workshops in Germany, Axel tional cyber security analyses and
rently train local officers for more Henrichs of the Police Academy strategies, developing these and
simple social media investiga- in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany more specialized skills appears to
tions, to handle the high demand detailed the legal framework that be one of the major challenges for
of requests. The complexity and he developed for social media in- the years ahead.
process of how to obtain data from vestigations as a training material
social network providers varies for for police officers. The framework For investigations, the police can
the networks. clarifies the relation of police op- make use of open sources that in-
erations with regulations of com- clude all information that is pub-
Investigations performed by the mercial social media platform op- licly available. While software in-
12 13dustry vendors such as Radian6, lice forces to follow official proce- Having a Voice To this day, a large number of Eu- accounts and social media chan- Fourth, police forces increasingly
Attensity, Kapow, Palantir, IBM, dures for international police sup- in Social Media ropean police forces do not make nels that specifically provide po- are confronted with the fact that
SAS, SAP, Oracle (and many oth- port and it can take long before active use of social media beyond lice-related information. This is rel- communication via traditional me-
ers) provide tools to support the the requested data can be made the use of social media as a source evant in small towns as well as in dia sources does no longer reach
combination of information from available, if at all. Facebook has a of criminal information. There are, major cities. In Berlin, Germany an the relevant people. For many po-
different online sources and in- team to work with law enforcement however, pressing issues that unofficial Facebook page with po- lice operations it is especially rel-
formation in police databases as agencies. Facebook collaborates more and more forces across lice news lists more than 15,000 evant to provide information and
well as to analyse the data, some with police forces across Europe countries describe as their moti- fans. In the Dutch region Haaglan- get information from younger peo-
of the officers we spoke to perform in international operations, for in- vation for making the first steps or den an unofficial Twitter feed by ple. These people simply do not
these investigations manually, in stance against child abuse and extending their activities on social a self proclaimed police fan lists subscribe to local newspapers any
ways that theoretically every citi- child pornography. When contact- media beyond investigations and 2,500 followers. There is little that longer and often get their news
zen could follow. ed by a law enforcement agency, as the key driver for establishing police forces can do to avoid that solely via social media. Police forc-
Facebook offers to freeze the us- While there are many different and their own ‘police’ voice on social other players fill the empty spots es therefore need to have a voice
For closed sources, such as pri- ers’ data so that it can be shared specific ways of using social media media. aside from being active and be- on social media in order to be able
vate messages exchanged on so- with the police once the official in- for policing beyond an information coming the most popular source to communicate with their target
cial networks, IP addresses that ternational police support request source for investigations, they can First, regardless whether or not a by themselves. Without a credible audience.
identify the computers from which has been provided. be framed under the general con- particular force chooses to estab- presence of the police, the space
users access a social network or cept of using a social media as a lish a presence on social media, for rumours and speculations in Fifth, social media increasingly im-
email addresses and phone num- Overall, this type of investigation communication tool with the pub- the adaption of social media by social media is ever growing. pacts everyday life. Police forces
bers, the investigation requires on social media has already been lic and thereby establishing a po- normal citizens who discuss and are confronted with the real world
the collaboration with social net- introduced and is currently being lice presence and voice on social share issues of their personal and Third, social media empowers the effects of social media. Police of-
work operators. European police introduced to the forces we spoke media. While this concept is cur- professional lives online confronts normal citizen to perform actions ficer from across Europe report
forces report that the interac- to. While existing legal frameworks rently being used only in selected all police forces. Given the broad- that traditionally would only be that they are confronted with large-
tion with social media providers need to be transposed to social forces and countries, the largely ness of this phenomenon, matters performed by the police. Specifi- scale parties that were organized
in their respective countries is media and police officers will need favourable public response and that are relevant for the police or cally, for search warrants in case on social media, that stalking on
not complicated as it follows na- additional training, the workshops the largely positive results make even specifically relate to police of missing people, the police have social media has real-world ef-
tional laws and orders from pros- and conferences did not bring any the mere fact that police forces work will not be excluded from this been confronted with relatives and fects, that suicide attempts are an-
ecution authorities. Getting data serious problems or deviances to work on establishing their own space. Put shortly, no matter if a friends who use social media to nounced on social media and that
from operators outside the nation- the fore that would put social me- voice on social media a best prac- police force chooses to be active start actions on their own. These child abuse is increasingly report-
al boundaries and outside Europe dia as an additional source of in- tice in itself.Forces that are active on social media, police matters are actions then lack the profession- ed online. All these and many oth-
is, however, more complicated. Fa- formation into question. Indeed, on social media are able to con- being discussed, nevertheless. al experience that the police have er issues are relevant for the police
cebook, for instance, as the most there seems to be great consen- front a number of pressing issues and it becomes increasingly dif- and require police forces with com-
popular network, operates under sus about the ways in which inves- that relate to the increasing ubiq- Second, and in consequence, po- ficult for normal citizens to distin- petence in social media that can
U.S. law. Accessing closed sources tigations on social media extends uity of social media and their rel- lice forces across Europe see guish trustworthy from non-trust- listen to citizens on social media
therefore requires European po- exiting practice. evance in citizens’ lives. themselves confronted with bogus worthy information. and are also able to speak up. Eve-
14 15ryday social media use prepares dia is an effective way to impact Social Media to the police is to publish police-re- cently in December 2011, the city tion and advise. In 2011, riots hap-
for the times of crises, where so- this space and to provide a cred- Push Information lated information on social media police of Zurich, Switzerland. While pened both in different cities in the
cial media have shown to become ible source of information. Having accounts that police forces set up many of the activities of these forc- United Kingdom and in Vancouver,
suddenly very relevant. Social me- a voice on social media has al- and that citizens can subscribe es in the meantime go beyond pub- Canada. As we studied the Twitter
dia helps people to self organize, lowed preventing online-organized to. Depending on the local popu- lishing press statements on social use of the London Metropolitan
to get and share important, current events. The voice of the police on larity of different social networks media, as we will show in the fol- Police and the Greater Manches-
and local information. As our anal- social media receives a high level the police forces that we spoke to lowing, most of them started in ter Police ourselves and as we had
ysis of the UK riots in the summer of trust that supersedes bogus in- either did so on Facebook or Twit- this way as their first step of using representatives from the Vancou-
of 2011 clearly indicates, during formation distributed online. Police ter. While there is a wide selection social media as a communication ver police at our workshop in Man-
times of crises police forces highly forces are able to fight rumours on of networks available, choosing tool. chester, we can provide accounts
benefit from established connec- social media. Search warrants these most popular networks al- from both events. All these forces
tions and trained practices on so- on social media get a greater re- lows a police force to minimize the To kick-off this effort initially, the used Twitter to publish information
cial media. sponse on social media than on As media consumption, especial- maintenance efforts while reach- Greater Manchester Police, the on their operations and to provide
traditional media. Having a voice ly with the younger generation, ing the largest number of people. Vancouver police and the Zurich information updates to citizens.
The experience that police forc- on social media prepares and en- shifts from local newspapers, tel- Additionally, police forces have city police, have had very posi- This information has received
es across Europe have gathered ables successful operations in the evision and radio to social media, been using YouTube channels to tive responses and could build in- great interest by the public and all
strongly indicates that indeed es- event of large-scale crises. Even in police forces face the challenge to publish videos and Flickr for pub- itial momentum through so called police forces saw significant rise
tablishing a voice on social media cases when police forces makes disseminate information to these lishing photos. This type of activ- ‘tweet-a-thons’ that lasted 24 in their follower numbers (up to
allows tackling these issues de- mistakes online, a mutual dialog audiences and thus increasingly ity is usually associated with the hours. During that time, the forces 100,000 for the Greater Manches-
scribed above. As we will detail on on social media about how policing need to use social media if they communications department of a published all activities on incom- ter Police from about 20,000 be-
the following pages with examples is and how it should be allows for want to communicate to certain force and social media in this way ing alarm calls and police opera- fore the riots). For all three forces,
from police forces in Austria, Bel- improving policing and increases citizen groups. Here, social me- become an additional outlet of in- tions in Twitter messages in order the public welcomed this new type
gium, Canada, Finland, Germany, the level of trust. dia provide the possibility for po- formation that previously was pre- to show the public the broadness of police service. Also during the ri-
Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, lice forces to publish news on their pared for press statements or the of police operations and tasks and ots, monitoring the discussion of
the United Kingdom and Switzer- own without the press as an inter- website of a force. in order to build special attention the general social media audience,
land, the first steps that some po- mediate and push this information from the media that further in- allowed the forces to issue state-
lice forces have already made have to a large number of readers. Us- Many forces in Belgium, the Neth- creased the number of their follow- ments that were trusted and have
provided high benefits for them, ing social media, police forces can erlands and the United Kingdom ers. shown to be an effective tool for
have improved the relationship embed their information in the have published this type of infor- fighting rumours.
between citizens and police forc- new media channels that citizens mation since 2009 or 2010. Po- Pushing information out to a large
es and have shown to be cost ef- use frequently in their daily lives. lice forces in Finland, Iceland, and number of people becomes espe- By adopting social media as a tool
ficient, too. Ireland report similar activities. cially relevant in times of large- to push information to the public,
The first and probably most The Criminal Intelligence Service scale crises when citizens need the police can communicate to a
The following examples indicate straightforward use of social me- of Austria has established a Fa- to be informed in time and look large number of people with rela-
that having a voice on social me- dia as a communication tool for cebook presence, as did, very re- for a credible source of informa- tively little effort and financial in-
16 17vestment. While not every citizen Social Media to Leverage a common police practice, social and express their general empa- 2010 and was found murdered on oyfZiN” (GMP). GMP further pro-
is using social media at all or is a the Wisdom of the Crowd media brings a powerful lever to thy with the case. Evaluating their Christmas day. The force in this moted their crowd sourcing efforts
member of the popular networks, this existing practice. Indeed, as Facebook activities, the Hannover case used Facebook advertise- and launched a campaign entitled
social media encourages sharing an officer of the German Hannover police found that useful informa- ment as a means to ask the public ‘shop a looter’. Large posters in the
information across people and police reports, social media may tion is usually provided within short for information and also used You- city showed the faces of suspects
networks, so that even citizens revitalize the instrument of public time periods after posting. During tube to show video footage from and asked people to help with their
who are not directly subscribed support in police operations that is the evaluation period they gained CCTV cameras, in addition to the identification. Twitter was used to
to a police force’s information can currently not effective. For the Han- useful criminal information in eight information provided on the web- announce the campaign. Both
also receive the updates through nover police, a review of the cur- cases for which, interestingly, the site and thereby could gather crim- forces provided phone numbers or
their friends. By using social media rent effectiveness of search war- normal press announcement did inal information for the case. links to their websites where the
in this way, police forces become rants revealed that there is only not result in any useful response. public could submit information.
more independent from the press very little response to search war- It remains, however, an open ques- Beyond individual cases, crowd In addition, people actively sub-
and open an immediate connec- Social media provides police forc- rants posted in newspapers or in tion how well this approach would sourcing has become the central mitted hints as Twitter messages.
tion to the general public. As the ri- es the opportunity to get informa- public places. On the other hand, work in the case of more police tool to identify suspects in the af- GMP replied to such messages
ots in Vancouver, Canada and the tion from the general public. Once search initiatives initiated by citi- forces following this approach in termaths of the 2011 riots in the and provided a short notice that
United Kingdom show, this asset pushing information to selected zens on social media have shown the Germany, given that the popu- United Kingdom. Both forces of the information had been taken
can become especially relevant in audience who can easily further to have wide impact while the lack- larity of the forces would probably our Twitter study, the Metropoli- into account, often together with a
crises situations. share the messages with their in- ing professional experience of the not be as high. tan Police (MET) and the Greater personal thank you note. MET did
dividual groups, police forces are police. These two reasons, specifi- Manchester Police (GMP) used not reply to such messages in their
connected to large crowds of peo- cally, have been the drivers of the For many forces in the United Twitter extensively to support in- feed, leaving open whether this in-
ple who they can ask for informa- force to start their own Facebook Kingdom or the Netherlands, pub- vestigations and to seek informa- formation had been taken into ac-
tion. Identifying suspects or is- presence, which they primarily set lishing search warrants on social tion on offenders. Both forces also count. Reflecting their efforts on
suing search warrants on social up and use to publish search war- media for daily operations has be- used the photo-sharing site Flickr social media in the aftermaths of
media has been highly success- rants. Even though the force only come a standard activity and is a to publish photos of perpetrators the riots and describing the impact
ful for police forces. The incoming published a few messages every common part of an overall social captured on CCTV. The general for the investigations, officers of
information does not necessarily month, they have passed 100,000 media or communication strate- public was asked to help in the the MET and GMP stressed the im-
need to be handled digitally, either. Facebook friends who commonly gy. For them, cases that receive a identification of these people. They portance of using Twitter and that
Instead, common phone communi- share the police messages with lot of public attention constitute a posted messages such as: “New this type of communication has
cation allows maintaining current their friends. In the search war- special challenge. CCTV images of people police been extremely helpful for identify-
procedures to verify the data and rants the police asks the people to need to identify on our Flickr page ing suspects. As we learned from
to distinguish between useless use a regular police phone number An officer of the Avon and Som- http://bit.ly/rnax8U Pls look and officers of the Vancouver Police,
and useful information. to report information, people use erset Constabulary, for instance, RT” (MET) or “Can you help iden- they had a comparable experience
Facebook comment function usu- reported of the case of Joanna tify these people? Check our Flickr in the aftermaths of the 2011 riots
While publishing search warrants ally as a means to report in which Yeates, a woman who went miss- gallery of wanted suspects and in Vancouver, Canada.
and asking the public for help is region they shared the information ing some days before Christmas call 0800 092 0410 http://bit.ly/
18 19Overall, social media appears to Social Media to other Twitter user. This user then is answers are not that clear and es- asked questions about the current when engaging is such direct com-
provide a powerful framework to Interact with the Public notified of that message and can pecially engaging in open dialogue police operation and also general munication, citizens have shown
ask the public for help in investiga- choose to reply. In many cases this is more challenging than simply questions that touch police mat- great interest in the interaction
tions. While the responses, as in conversation, different from email, following common procedures ters. They also commented police with the police and generally have
the cases of riots, can be numer- takes place publically, so that an- and officers rely on their skills and work. As shown by an evaluation been supportive.
ous and create a lot data to deal ybody else may choose to read it, judgment, more than on guidelines of this interaction by the police in
with, they have shown to be helpful too. Facebook, too, by default al- only. cooperation with the University for Such open dialog also provides a
and provided critical criminal infor- lows the individual the comment Applied in Sciences in Business tool to resolve conflicts and pro-
mation that could have not been on posts of other users or sim- For the police, this interactive di- Adminstration Zurich, Switzerland, vide direct feedback to police work.
gathered with traditional means. ply express their appreciation by alog offers the chance to engage in the responses were either neu- In the aftermath of the 2011 riots,
pressing the ‘like’ button. After all, a dialogue with the average citizen tral (60%) or positive (40%). Only the GMP posted a highly contro-
the social media have been named that they might, typically, have had a marginal number of messages versial message on Twitter (“Mum-
For the police, social media has social for their ability to allow for in- less contact with. For the citizen, (As we will further detail in the prac- Social Media for trends result from arrangements free to publicly post their own mes- makes the public aware of his ex- the best use of social media for po-
tice descriptions on community po- Community Policing and connections that emerge sage and only follow higher-level istence. lice work.
licing and the ‘human side’ of po- spontaneously and are difficult to guidelines, the headquarters usu-
licing, social media as means to control and foresee. This mode of ally monitor what their local offic- Jenny George (@GMPHeywood), is While most activities dealing with
start an interactive dialog between work usually contradicts with the ers are posting on social media a police community support officer community policing and social me-
police forces and citizens seems to ways police forces tend to oper- and in some forces also have ac- with the Greater Manchester po- dia understand social media as
provide a new channel that, while ate. Bound to legal and procedural cess to their officers’ accounts lice and one of the more than 50 a tool to support traditional com-
it also makes the police more ap- frameworks, a strict hierarchy and and thereby can independently officers who use Twitter to engage munity policing, some also under-
proachable for public criticism, can clear lines of command, police or- change messages. This monitoring in their local community. Reporting stand social media networks as an-
enhance and increase mutual trust ganisations, traditionally, are or- also takes place among local offic- about her work on a mobile phone other type of community in which
and understanding between police ganized top-down. ers and thus serves as a means to and communicating with her local the police also needs to have a
forces and citizens. share knowledge and best practice community has become a stand- presence. This type of activity is
Community policing is a concept For community policing, however, among each other and to be aware ard practice during her everyday sometimes described as “virtual
that suggests a close collabora- social media can empower the lo- of current policing matters in other job. community policing”. Marko Forss
tion between the police, the gener- cal officer in doing his job. In par- districts. of the Helsinki police, Finland re-
al public, and other organizations ticular in the Netherlands and the Serge Buitenhuis, a police officer ports of such activity of their force
to increase safety in society. Polic- United Kingdom, either social me- Ed Rogerson is a community po- of the Haaglanden regional police and that they currently have three
ing, thus, is not a matter of the po- dia officers have been appointed, lice officer of the North Yorkshire in the Netherlands, reports simi- officers working full time for virtual
lice alone but rather a joined effort which are responsible for social Police, UK. As an early adopter on lar activities for his force and the community policing. Starting April
of different public actors. Commu- media communication in their lo- Twitter, he publishes messages use of their Twitter channel (@Pol- 2011, 16 officers from 12 police
nity policing requires officers on cal communities, or social me- under the short name “@hotelal- itie_HGL) and Facebook page. He stations are additionally involved
a local level to develop a person- dia have become a standard tool pha9”. He reports that he is tweet- emphasizes that these efforts are in the work. Virtual community po-
al and close connection to citizen for a community police officer. In ing when he is out on patrol and driven bottom-up an that the local licing takes place on the networks
groups. Social media have been these cases, local officers, often what he is investigating. He also officers are free to explore social Facebook, IRC-Galleria, Messen-
successfully used by a number of using mobile computing devices, published crime appeals, gives media a tool to support their work. ger, Hommaforum and Demi. Here,
police forces to support commu- post messages on social media crime prevention advice. He pub- the police actively seeks contact to
nity policing. Additionally, police networks on their own behalf, in- lished good news stories of po- Marga van Rijssel, who is running people online to answer questions
forces have extended their com- dependent of the communication lice work and engages in conver- the Dutch website www.politie20. and file crimes. The virtual police
munity policing efforts to online or press officers of their force. sations with the public that also nl, which specifically deals with po- station in 2011, for Helsinki alone,
communities. They talk to citizens about their include games and quizzes. Ed lice intelligence and complex IT is- has recorded 246 acts of which
current operations, their wherea- Rogerson emphasizes that social sues and thereby also covers the were about 51 sexual crimes, an-
Social media, by nature, are a bot- bouts, so that they can be con- media, comparable to a jacket in topic social media for police work, other were 50 “virtual warnings”,
tom-up phenomenon. The individ- tacted, and post safety remarks bright colours, increases the vis- additionally reports of meetings usually related to bullying each
ual is free to communicate and when they come across local safe- ibility of the individual officer and that are being organized with citi- other. Overall in Finland in 2011,
connect to other people, larger ty issues. While these officers are zens in local communities to define 15-20% of all Internet related child
22 23sexual abuse cases were reported bottom-up approaches and lo- Social Media to Show the medium, especially when aim- a message that received a large firms these results. Directly after
through the virtual community-po- cal initiatives are unimaginable in Human Side of Policing ing for a two-way communication. amount of public criticism: “It the controversial message and
licing group. most countries, as they do not fit Here, police officers report that won’t be long before Jack is help- their request for feedback, the
with the current practice and hier- they entirely rephrase press an- ing out, he is training hard. flic. Greater Manchester Police re-
In a similar, yet smaller scale ini- archic work structure in which po- nouncements and use an infor- kr/p/a19R3N”. “Jack” turned out ceived numerous questions and
tiative, Boudewijn Mayeur of the lice organizations usually operate. mal tone. Additionally, they have to be a young police dog current- comments about their Twitter com-
regional police Limburg Zuid, Neth- It therefore remains a question received a lot of positive feedback ly in training. Discussions ensured munication. The informal way of
erlands has opened a virtual office for our future research if and how when posting contents that are not and followers asked questions communication was discussed, as
in the social network habbo hotel. such approaches could potentially directly or immediately connect- about its race and age. Later that was the problem of having differ-
In the virtual world that is used by be adopted by other forces. ed with current police operations. evening, after several additional ent officers writing messages that
young children mostly, children use Personal messages about an of- tweets about Jack, GMP also is- might have different tones. The re-
avatars to walk around and talk to ficer finishing his shift or handing sued a video of the dog. On August sponse was largely positive. Users
each other. Boudewijn Mayeur has When using social media, police over to colleagues before going 15th, GMP posted a message in asked for the continuation of the
a special virtual character that forces need to choose the tone of on vacation, receive encouraging which the shooting star Jack could more ‘human’ police communica-
identifies him as a police officer their messages that they use to feedback. Messages about things be seen at the anniversary of the tion approach, showed empathy
and operates a virtual office with talk with the public. Usually, po- related to police culture, such as museum. Our analysis of the fol- for making a mistake, and were
opening hours at certain times eve- lice communication is character- antique photos of police officers, lowers’ replies shows that the po- forgiving about the tweet. Users
ry week at which online users can ized by a formal and impersonal information about police equip- lice dog could ease the dialogue for instance wrote: “Hats off to @
talk to him. His service is popular tone. Typically, communication re- ment, other police events also re- that some hours before had suf- gmpolice embracing social media.
and the children talk to him about lates to facts from current opera- ceive this type of warm feedback fered from an inappropriate mes- Someone made a mistake, tweet
issues within and beyond the vir- tions made in official statements. by the citizens. sage. removed and apology issued. FFS
tual world. He also establishes a The experience of different police it’s human behaviour”, “@gmpo-
training program during which he forces shows that social media The Greater Manchester Police Beyond such special cases, Stefán lice everything right, more trans-
invites selected users who actively not only calls for a different tone, (GMP), for instance, promoted the Eiríksson, Chief of the Reykjavik parency = more faith in you guys”,
support his work in the network to it also allows police officers to talk anniversary of their police muse- Metropolitan police reports that or: “@gmpolice very useful to keep
jointly train other police officers in about positive news, emotions, um and other social events relat- positive news that in most cases friends @ daughter in Manches-
real, physical meetings. police culture and experiences of ed to the police. They posted links would not be distributed by the ter up to date. Thank you. Makes
daily life. As a result, the public de- to images showing historic police press receives lots of attention on you look more human and part of
The different and wide usage of scribes and welcomes the police cars and GMP officers of the past. social media. Citizens then who your community.” This closer con-
social media as a tool for commu- as a human organization that can Noteworthy among these messag- are interacting with the police wel- nection has direct impact on the
nity policing in some countries, be trusted. es that are not directly related to come the human side of policing. relationship between the police
however, should not convey the police operations was the follow- and the general public. GMP offic-
image that this is common prac- On social media, police forces ing message that was posted on Our own study of the UK riots ers reported that their perceived
tice in European policing. Indeed, need to adapt both the style and August 13, 2011 in the aftermaths about the social media use of the support in the community benefits
our workshops indicate that such content of their messages to the of the riots and the aftermaths of Greater Manchester police con- greatly from the approach. Local
24 25citizens went so far to bring food to citizens’ and police officers’ every- Social Media to Support Social media are not only tools for pect and collected enough evi- dramatically during and just after
the police station to support the of- day lives. This open communica- Police IT Infrastructure police communication; they can dence to charge him with the mur- the riots. Hosting images on a sep-
ficer when working long shifts. tion appears to improve the levels also become a threat to related IT der, through Twitter. The carefully arate server through Flickr helped
of trust that citizens have in their infrastructures. Within minutes, lo- crafted tweet (“We have charged ensure their site was not overload-
And while such more formal evalu- police forces. cal news can be virally spread and Vincent Tabak with the murder of ed and could run at optimal levels,
ations of the perception of social become global news. These sud- Joanna Yeates #joyeates #yeates thus ensuring the public could still
media use by police forces are yet den peaks in demand can have a www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/ gain policing information and ad-
to be conducted for other coun- major impact on the IT infrastruc- jo”) went immediately viral and vice.
tries, the experience of other forc- ture of police forces that they use spread across the Internet. Using
es suggest that this is not solely a to communicate with the public this set of social media platform al- As these examples show, and
British phenomenon. The respon- and hinder their ability to commu- lowed the police to be the central while these cases are surely ex-
sible public relations officer of the nicate. voice and remain communicating ceptional, the freely available glob-
Hannover police, Germany, reports In cases of large-scale crises or even in cases when their own web- al infrastructures of social media
a boost in popular image. Beyond in cases of investigations that For the murder case of Joanna site was unreachable. networks allow police forces to
the city’s border across Germany receive special attention by the Yeates during Christmas 2010 handle the peaks in demand and
the Hannover police is reportedly public, police systems for com- who first went missing and lat- This issue is, however, is not only make them communicative even in
perceived as a ‘cool’ and up-to- munication with the public come er was found dead, the Avon and relevant for smaller forces who exceptional cases.
date force. As we will describe in under stress. Increased attention Somerset Constabulary had to suddenly see high interest from a
the description of efficient policing for the information of a selected deal with high peaks in demand. national or global community. Dur-
in greater detail, Stefán Eiríksson force may exceed the geographic In that case, the public’s interest ing the 2011 riots in London, the
Chief of police at the Reykjavik po- boundaries and can go way be- overwhelmed rented infrastruc- Metropolitan police (MET), for in-
lice in Iceland also draws a direct yond the local community that the ture for the website making it in- stance used Flickr to publish im-
connection between the high lev- police force is usually responsible accessible during peak times. The ages of suspects. With announce-
els of trust their force measures for, as local news can be virally police therefore chose to use a set ments on Twitter, the photos were
and their activities on social me- distributed through social media. of social media networks to pub- extremely popular. As a social me-
dia. Usually, the IT infrastructures be- lish important information. You- dia officer reports, the MET up-
hind Police websites are not able Tube served as the network to dis- loaded a first batch of images on
Engaging in an open dialogue with to cope with the peaks in demand. tribute CCTV footage and asking August 9, 2012 at 12pm. Within
the citizens allows the forces to One successful way of dealing with the public for information. Also the 12 hours, at the end of the day,
widen the topics that they com- the high demands has been the police actively used Twitter and Fa- there had been more than 4 mil-
municate about with the public. use of various social media sites cebook to communicate. After a lion views. For this, even the police
Communication moves away from that can better balance high loads first suspect turned out to be unin- even reached the limits of Flickr
being purely related to police oper- in their global infrastructures. volved, the police therefore chose and had to distribute the images
ations and instead touches a larg- to submit the message, when they so that they would show up. The
er number of topics that related to had captured the second sus- MET’s website traffic increased
26 27You can also read
