Text alert in rural community

LoveCoke

This is something iread about in a paper and I am just curious not involved.

A rural community has set up a text alert system where by they will text each other if they see suspicious cars. if someone is in the area on genuine business is there any implication of any illegal act by sending texts identifying his car as suspicious.

The men plan to go out on a sort of patrol every evening and take down car regs if they are not known or acting suspiciously and share this with the garda. How would a non legal person define acting suspiciously? If a stranger was in the area but for a genuine reason would he have any reason to be upset to be defined as suspicious

They also plan to introduce a system whereby every one local gets a sticker for their car so that non local cars wil stand out.

Just curious as to what people think. I think it is a good idea but the stickers on the cars seem a bit much

Boombastic

Great idea! The Gardai need to be closely involved in these schemes (comissioner had pledged support) and there are data protection concerns/issues but done correctly, a great scheme

Hermitage

I think if cars are there on genuine business then they won't look suspicious. How it works in our area is if a unrecognised car, or say one with a reg from a county a long distance away, is parked up in a gateway or at the church carpark, to take an actual example, with occupants seemingly sitting watching, then people will alert each other to the fact so that all can be vigilant. It tends to work fine with people just using common sense.
Also, where people locally have been unlucky enough to be burgled, it works great if someone had sight of their vehicle and can pass that information on.

Boombastic

Hermitage wrote: »

I think if cars are there on genuine business then they won't look suspicious. How it works in our area is if a unrecognised car, or say one with a reg from a county a long distance away, is parked up in a gateway or at the church carpark, to take an actual example, with occupants seemingly sitting watching, then people will alert each other to the fact so that all can be vigilant. It tends to work fine with people just using common sense.
Also, where people locally have been unlucky enough to be burgled, it works great if someone had sight of their vehicle and can pass that information on.

No that's not how they should be set up. A person reports car by text. Text goes to designated phone to Gardai. Gardai then decide if the vehicle is suspicious and whether a text is to be sent to all people signed up to scheme & what details should be contained in the text. Otherwise the group are leaving themselves open to all sorts of problems, Gardai must be involved.

Hermitage

That's how it is set up - we have one person who is the point of contact who then alerts the Gardaí. The Gardaí don't want everybody contacting them so this works well.
We also look out for our neighbours though and if we see anything which is clearly suspicious we let them know.

LoveCoke

Boombastic wrote: »

No that's not how they should be set up. A person reports car by text. Text goes to designated phone to Gardai. Gardai then decide if the vehicle is suspicious and whether a text is to be sent to all people signed up to scheme & what details should be contained in the text. Otherwise the group are leaving themselves open to all sorts of problems, Gardai must be involved.

The garda are involved in the one i read about but I cannot recall to what extent or if they text each other before texting the garda

i think it is a great idea too but I wondered if say someone genuine was driving slowly up and down a road looking for a house would it look suspicious. And in another schemes I read of there is a designated person who phones the garda but if I am the dedicated person and you see a suspicious car you have to text me so i can contact the garda

Boombastic

Hermitage wrote: »

That's how it is set up - we have one person who is the point of contact who then alerts the Gardaí. The Gardaí don't want everybody contacting them so this works well.
We also look out for our neighbours though and if we see anything which is clearly suspicious we let them know.

Oh, when i read your post I thought the Gardai weren't involved I have been involved with this scheme at all levels and have seen disastrous results when the locals just do it themselves. Also the cost and efficiency of the texts (all sent at the one time, the information they contain etc) can be extremely low when it is set up properly. (cost low, efficiency high )

LoveCoke wrote: »

The garda are involved in the one i read about but I cannot recall to what extent or if they text each other before texting the garda

i think it is a great idea too but I wondered if say someone genuine was driving slowly up and down a road looking for a house would it look suspicious. I read of there is a designated person who phones the garda but if I am the dedicated person and you see a suspicious car you have to text me so i can contact the garda

That is why the Gardai must be involved (are are happy and willing to be) to determine if the car is suspicious or not, otherwise vigilantism etc could occur. Yes group have designated phone. One person holds it (a few people nominated to hold it on rotational basis). This is the number people text to report. Designated holder forwards to Gardai. Gardai then decide to take action/or not and composes text to be sent on to all people registered on the scheme.


Data protection is also a major concern.

LoveCoke

Boombastic wrote: »

Oh, when i read your post I thought the Gardai weren't involved I have been involved with this scheme at all levels and have seen disastrous results when the locals just do it themselves. Also the cost and efficiency of the texts (all sent at the one time, the information they contain etc) can be extremely low when it is set up properly. (cost low, efficiency high )
.

sorry did not make myself clear

Boombastic

LoveCoke wrote: »

sorry did not make myself clear

Ah, no worries...it's just important that these schemes are set up properly from the start and procedures followed

LoveCoke

Data protection is also a major concern.

that is where i was coming from. the person who texts the concern to the phone holder is not contacting the garda directly

Boombastic

LoveCoke wrote: »

that is where i was coming from. the person who texts the concern to the phone holder is not contacting the garda directly

People who sign up to the scheme, their data must be protected, phone number etc...important that phone is not left behind on pub table for example.


Also the data contained within the text message has to be monitored, no full number plates etc

Also important not to text elderly people in the middle of the night to worry them, so it's important that elderly/vulnerable people identified, but at the same time not publicised.

Many areas are making maps of individual houses to help direct emergency services (in rural area), important that these don't get in to the wrong hands.
That is just a few issues of concern:)


OOps totally misread your post (I posted in haste I only saw the bit about data protection and that's where you were coming from that angle ) - Yes you are correct, the person who texts the concern to the post holder is not contacting the Gardai directly, or else the Gardai would be over run handling the texts

Hermitage

Are you concerned about the data privacy rights of the people looking suspicious, or the rights of the phone holders and texters?

The phone holder and the texters have given consent to their name and phone numbers being used and shared by signing up to the scheme. The suspicious individuals' data privacy rights would only be breached if people knew their names and passed them on. A car registration number for instance is not personal data on it's own.

If there were a privacy issue I would expect a court to consider the reasonable man's sense of common good in reporting a suspicious individual to trump that suspicious individual's rights to privacy.

Boombastic

Hermitage wrote: »

Are you concerned about the data privacy rights of the people looking suspicious, or the rights of the phone holders and texters?

The phone holder and the texters have given consent to their name and phone numbers being used and shared by signing up to the scheme. The suspicious individuals' data privacy rights would only be breached if people knew their names and passed them on. A car registration number for instance is not personal data on it's own.

If there were a privacy issue I would expect a court to consider the reasonable man's sense of common good in reporting a suspicious individual to trump that suspicious individual's rights to privacy.

The people signing up to the scheme - who will control the records? Where are they stored? who has access to them? Who is responsible for updating them, Will the scheme also send out notice of texts of events in the community? Is this identified on the consent form?

A car registration is public information, but care must be taken if connecting it with criminal activity, Can be be sure that nobody signed up to the scheme will approach the suspicious car/van and challenge the occupants? Will this be putting wither themselves or the occupants of the car in a dangerous situation?


Don't be too sure about which side the court will side with, there are rules and guidelines to be followed.


The above is just some things to be considered

afatbollix

Why not set up a ANPR camera and cut out the nosey locals?

dharma200

I have to say i find this idea pretty ridiculous. Local cars getting stickers... reminds me of that comedy 'this is a local shop, we'll have no trouble here' type thing.

Purely if a new car is in any area there will be texts sent? One would think if someone was acting suspiciously then fair enough, but all non local cars... I live in a rural community and I can see exactly the type who will be very keen to spend their whole life jotting down and texting away car regs...

Policing by text really is a sign of the times. I can just picture a guard sitting there in a rural station without a car,. like here, texting away like a good one.... very strange scheme, community watch yes, but texting reg back and forth and all around, locals running around like on a hunt for stickerless cars... stickers being got on the black market... on eperson might get carried away with themselves, go into deep paranoia and do someone in, like the electric man or th epost man when he gets a new van... surely if people are acting suspiciously a phonecall to the guards si the proper order, texting, texts getting past back and forth.. how a guard can tell by a text wether or not a car is being suspicious is beyond me... its like texting your doctor a description of a spot and expecting him to know if its just a normal spot or something more sinister. I understand the concept of this, however it really is a step to far in the community policing that ireland is being forced into.. I can see many disasterous outcomes fromt he sticker scheme, the descisions a person has to make from text message, and the response times etc. it would seem another way to make a community have the illusion of protective presence from the guards, when in effect it is not there. Sorry, post not from a legal point of view, but from someone who lives rurally and has visions of mary down the road spending her life looking for stickers and trying to work out preditctive text.....

tiny timy

it's in my area and find it great.it's nice to receive a message just to say to watch out for ........... just another bit of security,which is nice

Boombastic

dharma200 wrote: »

............ how a guard can tell by a text wether or not a car is being suspicious is beyond me... ............

They can run the number plate through their records and see if it's stolen etc, that's why the Gardai need to be involved. It is a great system and it works great when run properly. Also if the car is reported in one area after a burglary and then in the next area the know which direction the car is travelling in and have more information to go on in order to catch the criminals.

dharma200 wrote: »

the descisions a person has to make from text message,

It's the gaurdai that make the decisions, not the people all they are doing is passing on information

expectationlost

ok so the information goes in from one person and doesn't nesscearily go out to the rest, only on gardai judement but I'd still really like to know what constitutes a suspicious vehicle/person from the point of view of the community resident and the gardai, the company that runs this along with muintir na tir is called grapevine communication, grapevine as in gossip/rumour, what do they do with all this information about people, should it be collected?

People are asked to call the scheme if they see anything suspicious, and the volunteer manning the phone then decides if it merits a group text being sent.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/big-rise-in-community-alert-schemes-1.1067569#.UUdsIgVN_2w.twitter

see there it says a volunteer decides, i wonder does that he decides if it should go up the chain to gardai or not.

Molly Bawn

Muintir Na Tire overlook the scheme for rural communities and have a great document spelling it all out on their web site. We have a business which entails calling to private homes at times. Am I not entitled to go about my business without locals deciding that my car is not local !

Victor

Boombastic wrote: »

Oh, when i read your post I thought the Gardai weren't involved I have been involved with this scheme at all levels and have seen disastrous results when the locals just do it themselves. Also the cost and efficiency of the texts (all sent at the one time, the information they contain etc) can be extremely low when it is set up properly. (cost low, efficiency high )

Some fairly ordinary phone accounts allow thousands of texts per month.

Hermitage wrote: »

The phone holder and the texters have given consent to their name and phone numbers being used and shared by signing up to the scheme. The suspicious individuals' data privacy rights would only be breached if people knew their names and passed them on. A car registration number for instance is not personal data on it's own.

If there were a privacy issue I would expect a court to consider the reasonable man's sense of common good in reporting a suspicious individual to trump that suspicious individual's rights to privacy.

The biggest issue there would be defamation.

There would be a good defence if bringing it directly (but not maliciously) to the Garda, but to a community watch might be another thing.

afatbollix wrote: »

Why not set up a ANPR camera and cut out the nosey locals?

There are rules about such things. The data has to be processed fairly. Tracking everyone coming into a village is hardly fair.

Santa Cruz

Molly Bawn wrote: »

Muintir Na Tire overlook the scheme for rural communities and have a great document spelling it all out on their web site. We have a business which entails calling to private homes at times. Am I not entitled to go about my business without locals deciding that my car is not local !

If you are a stranger calling to houses in rural area you should have the cop on to realise the fear that people living in isolated area feel. Do you contact your customers first and give them the time that you will arrive or do you just arrive at the door cold calling? If it's the latter you deserve to be the subject of suspicion. People have to protect themselves and their property.

Boombastic

Victor wrote: »

Some fairly ordinary phone accounts allow thousands of texts per month.
................

They do, but you'd want to check are they all delivered within the time frame desired

barman linen

Molly Bawn wrote: »

Muintir Na Tire overlook the scheme for rural communities and have a great document spelling it all out on their web site. We have a business which entails calling to private homes at times. Am I not entitled to go about my business without locals deciding that my car is not local !

There has been a lot of debate on this issue with the Guards, Muintir na Tire, IFA and Neighbourhood watch etc during 2013. I am part of a neighbourhood watch scheme and we want to operate a scheme.


The Guards want to have one approach nationally and a scheme that they are involved in. An initial pilot in a country area has resulted in legal proceedings where a local businessman received a text indicating that HIS new van - that he was sitting in - was acting suspiciously.

For this reason the Guards want to control the distribution of the text. They can check the computer to see if the van/car has been previously involved in criminality or is registered to a local they may know. They will only alert when they see a need. Most trial schemes have shown a significant number of texts in the early days and then a tapering off.

It is not perfect but it does hope to prevent Mr or Mrs Nosey innocently defaming legitimate business people / ordinary people.

There is a desire also that if a singular scheme is selected then it would form the platform for a national AMBER ALERT scheme.


I think at the moment it is bogged down in deciding the provider(s) so a good old fashioned public sector procurement is on the way.