Croatian police technology attracting international attention.
A police application which enables anonymous and instant communication with police operations centres has been downloaded by more than 25,000 people since early October. Already, more than 2,000 reports have been sent to the police through the app, Deputy Interior Minister Evelin Tonković said. Police forces and companies from other countries have shown great interest in the Croatian police application, reports Poslovni.hr on November 14, 2015.
Tonković revealed that the award-winning “E-police” project, which also includes cameras on uniforms which record actions by police officers, has been conceived as a central information system which will manage a variety of activities to allow the police to be better informed. The Deputy Minister, who began his career as a police officer and then became a lawyer in Split, said that the project is helping everybody. “In addition to the protection of police officers, who are daily faced with unfounded complaints, harassment and attacks, I also wanted to protect citizens from possible mistakes by police officers. We have to be careful since some mistakes can often reflect negatively on the reputation and status of the whole police. For example, recently in America a mistake by a police officer nearly led to racial unrest”, Tonković explained.
One of the goals of the project is to accelerate the work of police officers who had earlier spent a lot of time on the paperwork. This has been changed by the introduction of tablets which police use in the field. “Before the beginning of their shift, the policemen would spend some time at the station where they were informed of previous events and where they were given daily tasks. Also, after the shifts, they would have to go back to the station to write various reports. Thanks to this project, police officers can do all the tasks in the field and there is no need to print reports later at the police station. That means that they are available to citizens for a longer period, and they are more visible which creates a sense of public safety”, Tonković said.
During the last month, three new operation-communication police centres in Zagreb, Split and Rijeka have been opened equipped with the latest technology. In the coming year, it is expected that the remaining centres will also start using the new technologies.
