ABSTRACT

Perceptions of police trustworthiness are linked to citizens’ willingness to cooperate with police. Trust can be fostered by introducing accountability mechanisms, or by increasing a shared police/citizen identity, both which can be achieved digitally. Digital mechanisms can also be designed to safeguard, engage, reassure, inform, and empower diverse communities. We systematically scoped 240 existing online citizen-police and relevant third-party communication apps, to examine whether they sought to meet community needs and policing visions. We found that 82% required registration or login details, 55% of those with a reporting mechanism allowed for anonymous reporting, and 10% provided an understandable privacy policy. Police apps were more likely to seek to reassure, safeguard and inform users, while third-party apps were more likely to seek to empower users. As poorly designed apps risk amplifying mistrust and undermining policing efforts, we suggest 12 design considerations to help ensure the development of high quality/fit for purpose Police/Citizen apps.

摘要

对警察可信度的看法与公民与警察合作的意愿有关。信任可以通过引入问责机制或通过增加共享的警察/公民身份来培养，这两者都可以通过数字方式实现。还可以设计数字机制来保护、参与、安抚、告知和授权不同的社区。我们系统地考察了 240 个现有的在线公民警察和相关的第三方通信应用程序，以检查它们是否寻求满足社区需求和警务愿景。我们发现 82% 需要注册或登录详细信息，55% 的报告机制允许匿名报告，10% 提供可理解的隐私政策。警察应用程序更有可能寻求安抚、保护和通知用户，而第三方应用程序更有可能寻求赋予用户权力。由于设计不佳的应用程序可能会放大不信任并破坏警务工作，因此我们提出了 12 个设计注意事项，以帮助确保开发高质量/适合目的的警察/公民应用程序。