Facebook application to fight crime

15 April 2008 12:00am

Facebook has been signed up to help in the fight against crime, a police force has said.

Officers in Greater Manchester have developed an application for the popular social networking site that allows users to submit intelligence about crimes as well as keeping them up to date with news stories.

After installing it on their profile, users get a news feed alongside links to a crime-reporting form, force website and YouTube videos.

Greater Manchester Police said it has been developed to raise awareness of local incidents and appeal for information.

The force is the first in the country to take advantage of the site.

Assistant Chief Constable Rob Taylor said: "Greater Manchester Police is proud to be the first force in the country to use this new technology and it demonstrates our commitment to exploring all avenues available to us to help fight and detect crime.

"Facebook has 59 million users, seven million of which live in the UK, so we realised that this was an excellent way of spreading our messages to people on a more personal basis.

"This application allows Greater Manchester Police to further raise awareness of incidents taking place within our local communities in a bid to gain more intelligence and bring offenders to justice."

The application can be added to user profiles from http://apps.facebook.com/gmpupdates.

© The Press Association