This document discusses FearSquare, an application that combines public crime data with social media check-in services. It allows users to visualize and interact with official UK crime statistics based on places they frequently visit. The application retrieves crime data through APIs from Police.uk and locational check-in data from Foursquare. However, it is currently limited to UK data. The document calls for other governments to release crime statistics in standardized, machine-readable formats to allow the concept to expand internationally. It also discusses the need to ensure data is presented accurately to avoid misrepresenting locations.

1. FearSquare.com
–
Combining
public
crime
data
with
social
media
services
Andrew
Garbe+,
Shaun
Lawson,
Ben
Kirman,
Conor
Linehan,
Jamie
Wardman
and
Derek
Foster
Lincoln Social Computing Research Centre
University of Lincoln

2. People can use the application Provides a platform for
to easily understand the levels research into people’s
of crime in places that they perception of crime in
commonly live, travel through, or their life
visit
Allows people to visualize and interact with
official UK crime statistics in a way that is
specific to their own, individual, everyday life

3. Foursquare Police.uk API
http://foursquare.com http://www.police.uk/api/docs/
Allows you to retrieve crime
Location based service where you information about neighbourhood
earn awards and badges for ‘checking areas in all 43 English & Welsh
Into’ places such as your favourite bar, police forces.
restaurant or hang out place
Data.Gov.Uk
You ‘Check In’ using a mobile app and http://data.gov.uk/
this data is displayed on The Government is releasing
foursquare.com and available to your public data to help people
friends understand how government
works and how policies are made.

4. How does it work?
Uses RESTful API
calls for data from
foursquare and
police.uk

5. Foursquare
Check-­‐ins
and
Gov
Crime
Data

6. Public
interest
of
already
available
government
data
Fearsquare usage statistics show that the public are extremely interested in new and
exciting visualisations/applications, even if the data is already available elsewhere
Unfortunately the majority of users
are from countries which public
crime data is not currently available,
or not suitable for this project

7. IncorporaIon
of
InternaIonal
Crime
StaIsIcs
FearSquare currently uses UK crime statistics and therefore only provides data
on UK foursquare locations
We urge EU countries to release their own crime statistics:
ONLINE from a LIVE SOURCE in a MACHINE-READABLE format
http://www.police.uk/api/docs/ <- Good example of online crime data
Importantly crime records should contain the following;
Where Crime Location (Latitude/Longitude)
What Crime Type (Anti-social, robbery etc.)
When Date of reported crime

8. What
needs
to
be
done
Developers
need
data
that
is;
ü in
machine
readable
formats
ü available
from
a
well
documented,
live
online
source
ü in
the
purest
format
ü in
the
finest
granularity
available
ü able
to
be
limited
based
on
parameters

9. Impacts
of
data
misrepresentaIon
“@anon – Apparently a branch of Costa
Coffee in Cambridge is the most bad-ass
place on Foursquare in the UK!”
Developers and data controllers need to be vigilant of
how data is presented so as not to cause a detrimental
effect on third parties

10. Great
applicaIons
are
being
made,
but
what's
the
point
if
they
are
not
being
recognised?
• Data
controllers
need
to
formulate
a
selecIon
process
which
will
allow
developers
to
submit
applicaIons
to
a
central
ideas
hub
• These
ideas
can
then
be
formally
presented
as
government
backed
applicaIons
for
use
in
the
public
domain

11. QuesIons?