Enhancing public security through use of social media

the good, the bad and the ugly

Abstract

 This paper focuses upon the emerging findings of an ongoing Horizon 2020 project -MEDI@4SEC: The Emerging Role of New Social Media in Enhancing Public Security. Working actively with police forces across Europe, MEDI@4SEC is creating a future roadmap for the role of social media in law enforcement and public security planning, not only for communication purposes and as a listening platform, but also as a tool for collaboration – a digital realm where policing and crime prevention can be done in new ways with new types of digital and real-world interventions. The ongoing results of MEDI@4SEC presented here illuminate a variety of police tasks are increasingly utilising social media. Such activities further highlight a series of challenges and opportunities for policing associated with organisational change, legal and ethical issues, privacy, transparency and liability, technological infrastructure and training required and budgetary concerns that are likely to shape the take up of social media usage in police forces around Europe in the coming years.