Public safety, global availability - the vision behind iDU
Professor David Canter explains the need for his safety app and what inspired its creation |
The idea for iDU came from my experience as a psychologist
giving guidance to very many police investigations around the world. In many cases of missing people and assaults
by strangers gaining evidence of who the victim was in contact with, where and
when, is a crucial part of the enquiry.
So it occurred to me that the capability of modern phones, combined with the instant access to storage in ‘the cloud’, provided a unique way of simply and quickly recording who a person had met. It seems to me that this could be a deterrent. If a person did not want to have his photo taken for a confidential record that would immediately raise suspicions. In special circumstance, where a crime was suspected, it would also provide key information to help an enquiry. I realised such an app would need to be carefully constructed so that it would not be abused, and the information securely and confidentially stored. I therefore ensured that the developers I worked with could provide this. Currently the information is not stored on a website so that access is severely restricted. I also paid for the app privately, from my own funds, so that there is no commercial organisation that could gain access to the information. Having set this up I realised that iDU had many other applications. For example, I meet many people in my work and often cannot quite remember their names and who and where I met them. iDU gives me an elegant, unobtrusive and simple way of keeping a record of those meetings. The name of the app, by the way, was provided by my son, Daniel Canter, who is involved in knowledge management. Nice one, Dan! |
Professor David Canter
PhD, FAcSS, FAPS, (Hon)FBPsS, FRSM, C.Psychol, MFSS
Emeritus Professor, The University of Liverpool
Director, The International Research Centre for Investigative Psychology at The University of Huddersfield
www.davidcanter.com
Emeritus Professor, The University of Liverpool
Director, The International Research Centre for Investigative Psychology at The University of Huddersfield
www.davidcanter.com