By Fred Nwaozor
Tracking devices have become a powerful crime-fighting tool. They have had significant impact in recent years in most countries across the globe. A tracker is a specially programmed equipment meant to trace the actual location of a person or thing. However, it is worth noting that devices like cell phones, computers, cameras and what have you, can equally function as a tracker, if adequately utilised.
Cell phones, particularly Smartphone, contain inbuilt mechanisms, including Global Positioning System (GPS) among other location information that the various law enforcement agencies find valuable. Information like voice call history, text/multimedia messages, phonebook contacts, web browser history, and email, can tremendously help investigators to gather people’s aims and the occasions they have attended, thereby providing the required direction.
Tracking people via their mobile devices has been adopted by several agencies in most nations, and has become very much a part of most investigations because virtually every adult now possesses a cell phone. Cell phone records can identify calls made and received. The cellular towers that were used in the conversation, data communication, as well as the Short Message Service (SMS), can as well be obtained. The cell phone records hold latitude and longitude information that can be used as a historical reference to identify where the mobile device was at a particular period.
Similarly, citizens are advised to regularly send digital photos and videos of crimes in their custody to apt quarters. New technology allows sent images to be directly linked to the record of a related call, and be forwarded to emergency respondents on their way to crime scenes. A good example of such technology is CrimePush, a multiplatform Smartphone app that allows users to report crimes effectively and at ease. It equally gives users the ability to forward multiple GPS-tagged distress messages to designated emergency contacts/quarters.
High-profile criminal incidents all over the world have proven beyond doubt how valuable mobile phone images can be during crime investigations. The bombings in the United Kingdom (UK), precisely London, in July 2005, marked a turning point in news coverage and the role of camera phone images. Witnesses to the attacks used their cell phone cameras to record their experiences in the aftermath. Not only did it signal a new era of citizen journalism, but police in London were able to use the sent photos as clues towards tracking the terrorists that masterminded the bombings.
SMS is more discreet and safer in some circumstances, including burglaries and kidnapping. Several police departments in various countries have text-a-tip programs that allow people to send anonymous messages from their cell phones. With a view to providing people with a confidential means of communication, SMSs are sent to a separate third-party server where identifying information is removed and assigned an encrypted alias to ensure callers’ anonymity.
The various security agencies in Nigeria, especially the police, are required to fully employ the use of various tracking devices in issues regarding crimes. Technology is being developed and deployed by several criminals to perpetrate crimes, with the aim of leaving no, or little, digital footprint. This ranges from selling illicit goods on the internet to mass identity theft and credit card fraud. Vehicle crime also poses a dynamic challenge to these agencies; vehicle crime investigators are invariably faced with ever-changing technology as well as regular introduction of new vehicle models. Modern vehicles are more like mobile computers constantly threatened by hackers. The police must take note of this fact and advance on it.
Digital forensics is a branch of science encompassing the recovery and investigation of materials found in digital devices including computers, cell phones and cameras. The police will continue to be challenged to acquire the needed tools and training to perform competent digital forensic investigations, and keep pace with criminal activity. Digital forensic department ought to be designed in all police quarters, and such unit should be sustained by continually providing the required equipment, manpower and environment.
Legislation can also be of help. Hence, lawmakers should provide a law, mandating all vehicles coming to Nigeria to bear micro-dotting technology. This would ensure that each vehicle contains approximately 1000 hidden markers that hold the identity of that vehicle, so that, in the event of the vehicle being stolen, it can be easily identified. Importantly, the locations of the 0.5mm dots are not visible to thieves, thus cannot be altered by them. The police personnel should also be trained on how to indentify data-dot technology.
The recently signed Cybercrime Act should equally be duly implemented by setting up a special unit under the Police Force that would be in charge of crimes involving the internet. Such unit must possess all the needed devices and experts. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is, on its part, expected to play a major role in crimes pertaining to the use of cell phones, thus the police must endeavour to collaborate with it.
For Nigeria to properly tackle all kinds of crimes, the relevant authorities must boast of various well-equipped sensitive units on digital investigations, cyber security and electronic discovery.
Nwaozor writes from Owerri via [email protected]