Hamilton Ratshefola, sales lead at IBM South Africa. Image courtesy of IBM.
IBM South Africa has spoken out against crime in South Africa, urging technological private-public collaborations to reduce crime in the country.
Hamilton Ratshefola, sales lead at IBM South Africa, spoke at GovTech2013 about the disconcerting crime rates in South Africa.
“What is needed to deal a real blow to crime is a coordinated programme of collaboration, involving the public and private sector, as well as citizens, enabled by the innovative use of advanced technology,” he said.
IBM has extended its offerings to become a consulting house in hi-tech matters to include wider solutions.
Its global Smarter Cities project was mentioned as an example of inter-sector collaboration to enable public safety worldwide through storage, analytics and search tools.
Working with the New York Police Department, IBM developed a data warehouse to file more than 120 local criminal complaints, 31 million national crime records and 33 billion public records as interconnected with multiple databases.
A similar system, linking 16 government entities, was developed for the Colombian Financial Information Analysis Unit.
Locally, the solution was implemented in collaboration with the East London-based University of Fort Hare, protecting the public by hosting a special report line supported by trend-spotting analytic tools.
Ratshefola said: “There are scores of examples where collaboration and the innovative use of technology have substantially improved the authorities’ fight against crime.
“We believe that wherever there is a system in operation – in society, government or business – technological innovation has the power to improve it.”
He emphasised the importance of advanced search and analytics tools to track crime situations and hot spots as a simplified method to reduce incidents.
Pointing at the key role of partnerships with bodies such as the South African Police Service (SAPS), South African Bank Risk Intelligence Centre (SABRIC), CrimeLine and LeadSA, Ratshefola explained shared intelligence can aid in taking a proactive, rather than reactive crime approach.
“The innovative application of technologies can also streamline and support the work of the Criminal Justice System, Correctional Services and forensic services,” he said.
