Students, SPF develop app that sounds alarm to deter offenders, sends crime evidence
The Singapore Polytechnic final-year project team behind the “Call Police” app, which won the Merit Award at the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Security Awareness For Everyone (SAFE) Competition. From left to right, Nicolas Wee, 19, Deswanto, 20, Claris Tham, 20, Lee Wei Yan, 20. Photo: Clifford Lee
SINGAPORE — A new “Call Police” app may be the next crime-busting tool in people’s pockets, enabling them to report a possible crime through photos or videos, which can be used as evidence material in court.
These may be sent along with precise locations of the crime scene and the user’s personal details to the police. Users will also have the option to call the police via the app, or set off an alarm when attacked.
This Android-based mobile application is among more than 200 student projects featured at the Singapore Polytechnic Project Showcase 2016 on Thursday (March 10), which covers works by outstanding graduating students from the polytechnic’s School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Design School, and the School of Digital Media & Infocomm Technology.
One student and project leader Nicolas Wee, 19, said the team’s hope is to bring down the crime rate with this app, which was developed closely with the Singapore Police Force. It won the Merit Award at the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Security Awareness For Everyone (SAFE) Competition last October.
The app’s notable feature is a shrill alarm. The public may get such alarms during community events organised by the police, but Nicolas noted that people are unlikely to carry them around.
For the app, when the user is in distress, a shrill alarm function will set off a piercing siren to deter perpetrators, while allowing the user to take photos and videos of the assailants. Users may activate this alarm by vigorously shaking their phones in times of danger, and then choose to call the police or take a video of the attacker.
The team of four final-year students behind the app design said it was developed from scratch over about six months, as a course assignment for their diploma in business information technology. Despite insufficient technical knowhow on the mechanics behind programming a mobile app, the team rose to the challenge.
Nicolas said: “Singapore is working towards being a smart nation. We wanted to create a mobile application which we don’t really study in-depth in our school. We wanted it because it puts us in an uncomfortable zone where we had to learn more.”
The team self-learnt the basics of programming a mobile app, and even met with the developers of the Grab Taxi app, who shared with the team the knowhow on displaying real-time GPS information of cars on the road.
The student team hopes to be able to integrate this function into their app, to allow users to know the whereabouts of the police as the officers head towards the crime scene.
The team is also working on porting the app to Apple devices, and allowing users to sign into the app with their SingPass credentials in future. It is expected to be available for download upon SPF’s approval, though no deadline is given.
The public may view this and other exhibits by the School of Architecture and the Built Environment, and the School of Digital Media & Infocomm Technology on Friday (March 11) at the Singapore Polytechnic. The showcase by its Design School will be open to the public from March 12 to 17.
