By Taylor MacPherson

P.A. Police to offer online record checks

Nov 27, 2017 | 1:00 PM

Prince Albert’s Board of Police Commissioners spent the morning previewing some new technology city police plan to roll out in 2018.

Police Chief Troy Cooper said the department has two new tech projects in the works, a mobile app and an online criminal record check tool. Cooper said the app will help the public access important information from the police while on the go, while the online background checks will cut down office staff workload.

“We take in thousands [of record checks] per year,” Cooper said. “It’s very time consuming.”

The new online background checks will be done by a licenced third-party company, Cooper said, making the experience easier for customers while saving valuable police time. Anyone looking for a criminal record check can submit their information and pay online, he said, and will receive their results in the mail. The fees associated with the background checks will not change, he added, and the online tool will be available to the public in January.

“It will hopefully avoid big lineups at our front office,” Cooper said.

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The commissioners also had a chance to preview the department’s mobile app, which Cooper said will also be available to the public in coming months. The app includes the department’s new interactive crime map feature, he said, which gives residents access to up-to-data data on reported crimes broken down by date and city block.

While the crime map is already available through the police service desktop website, Cooper said the app will allow anyone to access the crime map and other important information easily through a smartphone.

Budget issue unresolved

The police department’s ongoing budget challenges were not discussed at the public meeting, but Cooper said the commissioners will tackle 2018’s funding during their in-camera session.

The police service was recently asked to reduce their 2018 budget request by $200,000, down from their originally requested increase of $543,000. While Cooper assured the public front-line services will not be affected by next year’s budget, there has still been no word on where the savings will be found.

The police chief said he plans to ask commissioners to delay their final decisions on the budget into the first quarter of 2018. There are still a lot of unanswered questions, he said, and everyone will have a clearer picture of the upcoming fiscal year in the next few months.

Taylor.macpherson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @TMacPhersonNews