Alberta RCMP Launches Mobile App for Non-Emergency Reporting

The Alberta Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has launched a new app that makes it easier for Albertans to report non-urgent crimes and incidents directly from their smartphone.

The app is free to download from the App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android and also features news releases, detachment locations, and crime maps/statistics.

“While the app will not replace existing online tools, it will supplement current RCMP web content and consolidate information into one mobile source,” said Chief Superintendent Peter Tewfik, the officer-in-charge of Alberta RCMP’s Community Safety and Wellbeing division, reports CTV News.

“Our intent with this app is to help remove barriers and access important information.”

The app can also be used to report non-emergency crimes or incidents to the Alberta RCMP.

RCMP warns that the app is designed exclusively for non-urgent incidents and is not supposed to be used to report urgent crimes. “If you saw a crime in progress, please call 911,” Tewfik added.

Canada’s first crime reporting app for the iPhone was launched back in 2013 by Victoria’s Police Department. The RCMP have had their own smartphone app for a long time now, but it did not offer any reporting features.

Tewfik noted that the Alberta RCMP app does not track or monitor users in any way, and does not collect any information (location data included) either. That’s good to have on the record, considering a leak from 2015 revealed that the RCMP did consider acquiring mobile spying software at one point.