eGovWatch: Tip-offs, complaints and 1.2 lakh likes, crime-fighting in the digital age

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Even as it uses Internet tools to push the boundaries of governance in India’s information technology capital, a social media-savvy Bangalore police are discovering that the digital divide is real and that it stands in the way of efforts at participatory governance.

By Johnson TA

While there is a flood of people reaching out to the police in Bangalore via social media like Twitter and Facebook, the police are finding that a majority of issues being flagged on online forums are coming from a section of the population living and working in the newer parts of the city — the east and the south — that has risen over the past decade on the back of the information technology-driven boom in the city.

“Because of social media’s dynamic nature, the problems raised on social media need immediate attention and this takes up a significant amount of our time now. But what we are finding is that a few parts of the city are more active on social media than others,” says Inspector General of Police B Dayananda, who pioneered the social media advent of the Bangalore police in 2011.

“Issues are rarely raised from the older western and northern parts. In that sense we are serving only a small cross section through social media,’’ says the IGP who was until recently the traffic commissioner for Bangalore. Since the Bangalore police began actively using Facebook to reach out to the public around five years back, there has been a steady growth of online demands placed on the police.

Over the last year, since police commissioner MN Reddi introduced serious usage of Twitter as a communication tool, there has been a virtual explosion of interaction with issues ranging from traffic problems to public nuisance on the streets being flagged on a daily basis.

The Facebook page of the Bangalore city police has over 1.2 lakh likes, the Twitter account of the Bangalore police commissioner has over one lakh followers while a small video of a constable helping a cobra get across a road posted on a police social media site recently attracted over 44,000 views. The Bangalore Police is, in fact, the only law enforcement agency from the country to be among 16 social media savvy government agencies chosen to be a part of the Twitter Samvaad initiative under the Central government’s “Digital Governance Service” project. The use of social media by the police has resulted to some extent in a change in public perception of the police force.

The Bangalore Police has set up internal systems to respond with speed to complaints from fear of the online backlash that could occur otherwise. A system of gathering “tweet petitions,’’ and Facebook complaints and directing them to local police officers for action and a system of posting responses directly to the petitioners and through weekly updates on social media platforms has been put in place.

The Bangalore police are now even attempting to source information regarding crimes on social media and all police officers have been asked to transmit social media contacts to the public. “Online crowdsourcing gives us a parallel version of an incident from eyewitnesses or the victim.

Even minor bits of information from the public can provide breakthroughs,” commissioner MN Reddi said recently while calling for ‘Tweetformants’.

Last year a gang of six people were arrested on charges of eve-teasing and ganja peddling in a residential area on the basis of a Twitter tip-off. In another case a senior citizen tweeted about police laxity in tracing his missing grandchild forcing senior officers to direct local police to find the child. “The challenge now is to ensure that the whole of Bangalore gets the kind of attention like those using social media,” says IGP Dayananda.

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