NedWeb, a web consultancy engaged by the Home Office to develop software that allows victims of crime to meet and confront the criminals who victimised them, has launched a new search engine called BURGLE.
NedWeb's technical director Arthur Daly explained,”What BURGLE does is allow clients to access three key types of databases, Holiday Booking, Milk Delivery and Intruder Alarm Systems. The criminal merely enters a convenient postcode and BURGLE instantly displays a list of properties where a holiday has been booked, milk deliveries have been cancelled and an Intruder Alarm is absent. Not only that it ranks the properties by socio-economic group in descending order placing the richest pickings highest.
It is then a simple matter for the client to plan one or even a series of property entry events usually leading to a boost in the clients revenue stream.
We think that once this takes off the phrase 'Burgled it' will become as popular as 'Googled it' in certain social circles like “'Owdya suss out them property entry opportunities, mate?” “Burgled it,mate, just Burgled it”
Slightly puzzled we asked how this was going to help with the original intent of the Home Office, i.e. connecting victims of crime with the perpetrators.
“As you see we do establish the connection.” said Mr. Daly “I should also explain that when our clients use BURGLE they are required to register and give full contact details, including previous convictions. We are able to hack into the Criminal Records Office and confirm the registration.
On completion of any property entry event they are also asked to prove that they carried it out by describing items from the property.
“This allows us to move to the next step of a face to face meeting between victim and perpetrator meeting the Home Office requirements.”
"We also have a little 'Like' box which they can tick if they were impressed by what they were able to take. Works like a kind of rating system for neighbourhoods”
"Also, we are able to host on-line, webcam based meetings between the victims and the perpetrators so both parties can meet from the comfort of their homes. The peek time for these sessions seems to be in the evening when the victims are home from work and the perpetrators are just getting ready for a busy night."
“Later this year we will extend the product offering to Car Theft. 'BLINDSPOT', which analyses public CCTV for areas not well covered by the cameras, will be used to direct clients to targets where detection will be difficult. Connecting the victim in this case is no problem as we can use the DLVA to get victim details.”
What about vehicles that are not properly registered and licensed? we asked.
“No big deal” said Mr. Daly,”In such cases the victim and the perpetrator are probably already acquainted.”