• Home
• GOVERNMENT CXO
• E-GOVERNMENT
• CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
• TAX AND REVENUE MANAGEMENT
• GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT
• GREEN GOVERNMENT
• GOVERNMENT DATA MANAGEMENT
• GOVERNMENT SECURITY
• GOVERNMENT CLOUD
• GOVERNMENT ANALYTICS
• GOVERNMENT GIS
• CONNECTED GOVERNMENT
• DIGITAL INCLUSION
• EDUCATION IT
• HEALTHCARE IT

Citizen Engagement

Singapore police to launch iPhone app

By Xinghui Guo | 9 September 2011

The Singapore Police Force (SPF) has an iPhone application that will be ready for launch in October this year, said Ng Guat Ting, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Director of Public Affairs Department, SPF.

This will form yet another communication channel in SPF’s extensive engagement effort that includes a YouTube channel, TV programme, a FaceBook page with 160,998 followers, and a Twitter account.

“People now access social media on the go via their mobile phones,” explained Ng. “This means that the SPF must be able to reach out to the community via multiple channels, including through mobile phones.”

With an iPhone app in the pipeline, SPF is hot on the heels of the police in Dubai and Selangor, Malaysia—the Dubai Police first announced their app in July 2010 and Selangor’s one was launched just in August this year.

Apart from the iPhone app called ‘Police@SG’, SPF is looking into hosting e-Townhalls type of dialogue sessions via SPF’s Facebook page—similar to what US president, Barack Obama, has been doing with Twitter and Facebook.

Other interesting advances from SPF is a vision of community policing being extended to the online world.

Ng said: “The assessment is SPF’s involvement in social media has to go beyond using social media for public communications purposes to one which could galvanise the online community into action to fight crime and generate participation in police-related activities, programmes and schemes.”

SPF is also thinking of hosting live chats with fans so that citizens and residents can freely engage with police officers online.

SPF has been on mobile technology since 2006 where they kicked off their SMS Crime Alerts.

More information on Police@SG to follow on FutureGov Asia Pacific.

Tweet

---