A Usable and Secure Crime Reporting System for Technology Resource Constrained Context

Abstract

Crime in technology resource constrained environments has been shown to adversely affect economic growth by deterring investment and triggering emigration. To address this secure reporting channels are being investigated to encouraging anonymous crime reporting. In this paper, we present a system (CryHelp App) developed to enable residents of a university community situated in technology resource constrained environment to facilitate secure and covert crime reporting. We focus primarily on the usability of the application. The system was developed on the basis of user centric iterative approach. Deployment and evaluation results of our prototype system demonstrate that overall the system scored a 77.06% usability rating with a standard deviation of 0.05 for contributing scores on System Use, Information Quality and Interface Quality. This is indicative of the fact that users found the system to be very usable.

A Cloud-Based Crime Reporting System with Identity Protection

“…There are two primary requirements for an online crime reporting system: Informers must provide their real identities, and their identities must be well protected. With these requirements in mind, several online crime reporting systems have been proposed for different applications in recent years [1,2,6,7]. In order to ensure that the informer's identity is protected during reporting, anonymity can effectively protect victims and witnesses; however, the security mechanisms involved in identity verification and data transmission are important issues to be addressed.…”

“…Many online reporting systems have been proposed to date, and research into such systems has provided several requirements for such systems [6,[15][16][17][18]. For example: trusted third-parties are used to verify legitimate informer identities using digital certificate technology to prevent abuse of the system by impostor attacks [15,16]; authentication mechanisms are crucial to such systems [19][20][21].…”

“…Informers may wish to remain anonymous during the online reporting process [6] because they are afraid for their own safety should their identity become known to those being reported [17]. Therefore, it is important to protect informer identity.…”

On Anonymizing Streaming Crime Data: A Solution Approach for Resource Constrained Environments

“…A study [1] carried out in technologically resource-constrained environments has revealed that collected crime data are usually not studied or analysed to support crime resolution. A possible reason for this is the lack of the necessary in-house expertise, both in terms of human capital and computational processing power [15,5,25]. This deprives policy makers in these regions of the benefits that could have been derived through data analytics.…”

Relationships between crime and everyday factors

“…It should be noted that the high-tech crime forecasting resulting from the need of ensuring safety, as well as the simulation and modeling of crime risk development and the probability of events, requires careful monitoring and obtaining information about new technological solutions according to the developed and implemented models [8].…”