Bluetooth move to combat crime
People on nights out in Bath are to receive bluetooth messages on their mobile phones warning them to behave as they leave pubs and clubs.
Bath and North East Somerset Council has launched the initiative to tackle city centre anti-social behaviour.
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Tim harris
The quickfire messages remind people to think of city centre residents and keep the noise down as they make their way home - with a warning that they could get an £80 police fine if they misbehave.
Anti-social behaviour co-ordinator at the council Tim Harris said the new method was an up-to-date way of communicating with 18 to 30-year-olds.
He said: "Young people don't go about reading lengthy posters and some of them don't even read newspapers.
"They contact each other using mobile phones, so this way we can make sure they are digesting this information."
The project was put to the test over the August bank holiday weekend, when a small bluetooth transmitter was placed in an office in Kingsmead Square, programmed to repeatedly send out messages between 8pm and 3am.
Over those three nights, almost 140 messages were accepted and read by members of the public.
B&NES cabinet member with responsibility for community safety Cllr Vic Pritchard (Con, Chew Valley South) said it was the latest in a line of initiatives to make the city safer.
He said: "The council is funding a variety of coordinated methods to help support a safe night time economy in the centre of Bath, like CCTV and taxi marshals, to create communities where people feel safe and secure.
"Bluetooth messaging is another that I hope will make people think about their behaviour and act responsibly."
The transmitter, which is about the size of a television digibox, is capable of sending messages to 21 phones every 40 seconds.
People with phones within a 100-yard radius are asked if they want to receive a message.
If they accept it, the information will be forwarded to the phone.
Although at the moment the technology is being used to issue anti-social behaviour messages, but it could have other uses in the future - such as alerting people to look out for missing children or to find witnesses to an incident.
Avon and Somerset Police is working in partnership with the council to tackle anti-social behaviour and supported the move.
A spokesman said: "We are looking at a variety of uses for the latest technology and this bluetooth capability to keep people safe when they are on a night out is another tool to help.
"Bath is a safe city at night and this adds to what we can deliver as a partnership with the council."
20 Comments
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by Jim, Bath
Monday, September 14 2009, 2:15PM
“Bluetooth is a terrible way of tracking people around town. Regardless whether you have it on or not the Police can find out where you are because your mobile phone is telling local cell basestations where you are - so your phone company knows to the nearest cell.
People should learn more about what their phone is doing before they get scared of bluetooth!
J.”
by The Devil, The Netherworld
Sunday, September 13 2009, 11:51AM
“rjs, considering the average range of a Bluetooth phone is about 10 metres, the police and "other services" (whatever they are) would have better luck following you on foot if they wanted to find out what you were up to.”
by rjs, Bath
Sunday, September 13 2009, 7:29AM
“When I purchased my first mobile phone some 6 years ago, I was advised never to switch on the 'bluetooth' because the police and other services can track your every move both in the UK and abroad.”
by Tom Trosborg, Bath
Friday, September 11 2009, 5:22PM
“I don't have Bluetooth on my mobile (actually, I probably do, but although it will apparently make the coffee I use it for calls and the very occasional text only) because I'm a BOF, but I would have thought that communicating with certain people in their own way would be quite smart.”
by Mike, Bath
Friday, September 11 2009, 9:51AM
“¿There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live¿did live, from habit that became instinct¿in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinised."
George Orwell - 1984”
by john, 1984
Friday, September 11 2009, 8:30AM
“wot a great idea, let mobile phones do the job of the police so that they are free to man the ques for the swine flu jabs, make sure everyone gets their medicine! brilliant...”
by Dave, Weston
Thursday, September 10 2009, 8:34PM
“Leaving aside the bluetooth thing, do we as council tax payers really need to be paying someone to be an "anti social behaviour co-ordinator". If we have to have some one in this sort of money wasting non job, can we have an "anti social behaviour preventor" rather than someone whose job title sounds like they are trying to make it happen!”
by Moe, Bath
Thursday, September 10 2009, 8:01PM
“ Funny how none of the council's seemingly endless ideas to combat antisocial and criminal behaviour involves the police. Not only can the police tackle both prevention and removal of the problem, but they can target all aspects of bad behaviour and all offenders and actually intervene to keep people safe. Not rocket science.
This latest madcap scheme can only possibly target the tiny minority of potential trouble makers that have bluetooth switched on, are willing to accept message requests from automatic spamming machines, and then not only actually read them but obey their message. I would be very, very surprised if that number of people ever exceeds zero. Everyone else - the remaining 100% - will behave as per normal but with slightly more irritation, and our apparently insane council will have wasted a bit more of our money.
Worth noting that bluetooth is not selective - everyone in range will get requests to receive these condescending warnings, including theatre-goers, diners, pedestrians, drivers and residents.
I wonder how many more police we could pay for if we recouped all the money spent on compensating for their absence? We have CCTV, speed cameras, portaloos, taxi marshalls, armies of street cleaners, drinking shelters, the lost business from those unwilling to head to town on a Saturday night, from hotels that cannot guarantee a quiet night for their residents, from landlords forced to take responsibility for their customers' behaviour, and the cost to the NHS and the police of dealing with the aftermath.”
by ly, Bath
Thursday, September 10 2009, 3:34PM
“Just a thought but aren't people most likely to have their bluetooth turned on in the city centre at drinking times just the taxi drivers for their headsets who are taking the anti social drinkers home!!!!”
by airhellair, howareyou
Thursday, September 10 2009, 3:06PM
“Bath and technology. Doesn't mix. Hence the negativity.
It is a good idea.”