Crime and law (benefits)

The internet has had a very large impact on crime and law enforcement.
Primarily the internet has improved how quickly the police are able to catch some-one and also how accurate they are in identifying a person.
A primary example of the internet beneffitting police officers is through traffic cameras. The are traffic cameras on most major roads now. The police can watch a live feed from the camera which is sent via the internet to the police station. This means that the police can react immediately if they see some-one breaking the law. Also the police can use the internet to access a database with every registered number plate on it which also contains information about who owns the car, if they have a licence, and whether that person has paid car tax. All this information can be used to help the police arrest people quicker. These traffic cameras can also be programmed to recognise specific license plates and immediately alert the police. This makes it easier to catch a person if the police already know what they are driving. Likewise it can also make it quicker to find stolen cars.
Speed cameras are similar to traffic cameras in that they monitor what is on the roads. However speed cameras are completely automatic. If they detect some-one speeding a picture is taken of the license plate. A computer then works out what the registration number is. The computer then accesses a database on the main server and finds the address that corresponds with the licence. The appropriate fine is then sent to the address. This is very beneficial to the police as it means that the officers can spend time doing other work instead of watching for speeders. Also a computer works a lot faster than a human when dealing with data. This means that while a human could fall behind in issuing the fines the computer will always stay up to date. Also computers make mistakes a lot more rarely than human, provided they have been programmed properly. This means that it is very rare for a fine either not to be sent or to be sent to the wronng address.
Traffic and speed cameras both work well because there is not a known way of obscuring the license plates while still making it readable for a human.

Normal security cameras work in a similar way to traffic cameras in that the police men can watch what is happening live. Security cameras are not as useful when it comes to recognising people as they can not recognise an individual person. However, they can be programmed to alert the police to anyone who looks similar to the suspect. Although not as useful as traffic cameras, this is still very useful as the police will still be informed, whereas without the camera the police would not know until later if at all.

Another way in which the internet is beneficial to the police force is that it has greatly sped up communication between officers. Nowadays an officer contact the station wherever they are really quickly. This means that they are able to report a crime, ask for backup or request information as soon as the need arises. This means that a response will be received quicker. This enables police to more successfully co-ordinate an operation, whether it is a car chase or a raid on a building. These increased levels of communication mean that the police can work more efficiently as a team which results in more arrests being made and less convicts escaping.

Another major advantage of the internet for the police is being able to search it very quickly to find something out about a person, place or company. The program google earth can be used along with other satellite tracking technology to follow where a person is going. This is useful if the police have lost visual contact with a subject or want to know where the person could be hiding illegal items or meeting other criminals.
The police can also run a program that very quickly finds images on the internet that look similar to an image. This is useful as it could let the police find out about a person even if they were only able to take a photo. This is closely linked with the police being able to quickly get a lot of information about other criminals and convicts from a central database. This means that the police can potentially identify if a suspect has any accomplices or any other outstanding charges.

Another benefit of the internet for police forces is satellite navigation (sat-nav). Satellite navigation works by having satellites triangulate where a sat-nav system is. The computer in the system receives the satellite signals and says where it is. It can then be programmed to find the quickest route to another location. This is useful as it means that police officers can get to a crime scene a lot qiucker because they will not get lost or take a wrong turn.
Also certain vehicles have sat-nat systems built into them. These are generally valuable vehicles such as ambulances or are delivery vans with valuables inside. This is so that if these vehicles are stolen the police can track it using the satellite navigation. This will speed up the time it takes for the police to find the stolen vehicle.

There is a process known as computer forensics. This is where police technicians can find out what has been saved on a computer. This is useful as it enables the police to find files on a suspect's computer that could lead to an arrest or a conviction in a court.  This works even if the files have been deleted because there is still a record of the file. The files can be recovered even if the hard-drive has been broken or damaged. The only way to stop a file being recovered is to drop the hard-drive in very strong acid. This is working less because people are getting better at recovering the data.
However, even if the files can be recovered, if they are encrypted it can still be difficult to see the data. It is possible for people to break encryptions. However the more advanced an encryption is the longer it takes to break the encryption. This can be a problem if the data is needed immediately for a very important reason.