The police in West Yorkshire, England, are using a simple intranet site to help catch bad guys (see West Yorkshire Police intranet helps solve crimes across the region):

"A new section of West Yorkshire Police’s own internal intranet site is proving to be a great success in solving crimes across the region.

Called ‘Caught on Camera’, the internal web page provides a central place for all photographs of unidentified people wanted for questioning in relation to particular crimes.

Officers across the Force are encouraged to undertake regular checks of the site, feeding any information they have back to a supervisor.

If an image remains on the site for over 4 weeks, it is also picked up by Crimestoppers who will then consider it for media appeals.

Since the site was set up almost 12 months ago, close to 350 people have been identified, with many leading to prosecutions.

Only last week, the site recorded 100,000 hits from visitors within the Force.

Andrew McDonnell of the Force’s Imaging Unit says it has gone from strength to strength.

"This is another example of how we can use simple technology in the fight against crime. Every officer in the Force has access to these images, so if an offender is known to officers in one area, and commits crime in a different area, they will not escape detection"

"Being able to access these images on hand held terminals while on the beat also means we are not taking officers away from front-line duties"

"In addition to exposing unidentified offenders to every officer in the Force, we can also use the images on our Facial Recognition system, which matches the face to known offenders on our database"

"The proliferation of CCTV in the UK is widespread, and many offences are captured on camera. This internal system allows us to make best use of these images and bring offenders to justice"