First, MySpace. Now, Mugshotbook?

Like unhip adults late to adopt a fad, police departments and other law enforcement agencies are jumping on the social networking bandwagon. They hope to break down bureaucratic boundaries between departments and jurisdictions and further the fight against crime.

A few companies in the field are developing promising businesses, and supporters have given the trend a slightly cringe-inducing name: Law Enforcement 2.0.

As in so many other realms where the use of technology has rapidly expanded, this crime-fighting method promises great improvements over traditional ways of getting things done. But it also challenges existing privacy protections, like limitations on the information investigators can share about people they suspect of committing crimes.

Most prominently, police agencies are now using the same Web 2.0 tools as everyone else — sites like YouTube, Twitter and MySpace. Last month, in a case that made headlines in the United States, the police in Auburn, Maine, posted images on Facebook from a surveillance video that showed three teenagers vandalizing the spa at a local Hilton hotel.

Facebook members soon provided tips, and suspects were arrested and charged with burglary and criminal mischief.

The Auburn police publicly heralded the investigative possibilities of Facebook. But to avoid breaking the law themselves, the police then blurred the faces of the teenagers in the photos, because it is against the law in Maine for the police to disseminate information about minors publicly.

Now Web services are being developed specifically to allow public and private investigative agencies to share information, and these tools are increasingly popular within law enforcement.

One service, called CrimeDex, is billed by its creators as a “Facebook for law enforcement.” Jim Hudson, a former police officer, co-founded the service in 2002 after growing frustrated with the wasted time investigators spent trying to determine whether other agencies were chasing the same…

Source: newsfactor.com

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