Dubai: A system to anticipate crime was launched by Dubai Police during the first day of Gitex Technology Week, in addition to 18 other smart services.

Lt Gen Khamis Mattar Al Mazeina, Dubai Police Chief, said the force will be announcing and launching some 18 smart services that is part of their strategic goal to reinforce safety, reduce crime and make people happy.

Brigadier Kamel Butti Al Suwaidi, director of the Operations Department of Dubai Police, said the new system allows police to anticipate areas where crimes can happen and increase police presence in those areas.

“The system is being used for the first time in the Arab region and is in the trial phase. We enter certain parameters and the system responds to those parameters to give us an idea of the areas that fit our criteria,” he said.

For example, if the criterion inputted is “show areas where more than two crimes took place in the past week”, the programme will automatically highlight all areas that fit this criterion and police will take the required action.

“We are sure this programme will reduce crime rates,” he said.

Al Ameen services will also be installing special kiosks around the city, where people can leave anonymous tip-offs on any security concern. The kiosk also has a feature to leave a voice message using a phone handset attached to the machine.

“These will be available in popular areas such as malls, the airport and metro stations. We are currently working on determining the exact locations where these will be placed and how many devices we will need,” a spokesperson from Al Ameen office said.

Dubai Police and Nissan have worked together to enable an SOS system for moderate to serious accidents.

Lt Col Adnan Ali Mohammad Ali, from Dubai Police’s Smart Services, said Nissan Patrols and Maximas produced after 2016 have this system.

“If the car is involved in a moderate to severe crash, it automatically sends an SOS signal to Dubai Police’s operations room. The car will also send information about the speed at which the car was moving and the force with which the brakes were used,” he said.

Even if the car is involved in an accident outside Dubai, they will still receive the signal and alert the respective police force.

Other Nissan cars will be getting the feature in due time.

Brigadier Khalid Nasser Al Razooqi, director of Dubai Police’s Smart Services, added that 15 devices that enable people to pay their fines using credit cards or debit cards on the spot have been added to 15 traffic patrols.

He said they have also unveiled a smart system that uses a robot to enable people to electronically sign documents.

Brig Al Razooqi said the system allows people to remotely sign a document using any tablet and the robot mimics the signature sent electronically on the actual document. The process is documented in case people need to refer to it.