An article on vnunet.com by Andrew Charlesworth,says that the public will soon be encouraged to use cameraphones to photograph and video criminal activity to send directly to a national police database.

\"Dutch technology consultancy Waleli has developed MMS-witness, a system which enables citizens to send photographs or movies to a central police database as part of an emergency call. Once viewed, the photographs or video can be sent to beat officers to increase the chances of a successful arrest or kept as evidence in further investigations.\"

While the concept is apparently in its very early stages, a few experiments have been tried with police in Rotterdam and forces in Sweden at being approached. They have not yet approached police forces in the UK, one of the most watched societies in the world with one CCTV camera for every 14 people.

There are apparently 295 million cameraphones in circulation worldwide, so Waleli\'s system could significantly increase the number of \"digital witnesses\".

\"People see a crime committed and are increasingly deterred from intervening in case they become a victim too,\" Hamminga told vnunet.com. \"This will enable them to do something without putting themselves in danger.\"