U of T Police introduce new anti-theft technology
Thieves beware: That bike may be bait
Sep 29/06
In a first for Canadian universities, University of Toronto campus community police service (UTPS) today introduced a high-tech crime prevention strategy to combat a common problem: bicycle theft.
By secreting a specialized global positioning system (GPS) beacon on a high-end bicycle, and working in partnership with Toronto Police Services, U of T police are hoping to catch bicycle thieves in the act. The pilot program, called Bike Bait, was introduced at U of T’s St. George campus.
“Our goal is to deter bike theft on campus and in Toronto in general” said Const. Peter Franchi, co-ordinator of the Bait Bike program.
The program uses technology from Nero Global Tracking of Vancouver and was originally introduced in Victoria, B.C., where police credit it with a 19 per cent decrease in bicycle thefts in a six-month period. The GPS beacon bounces a signal to a satellite that allows police to track the movement of the bicycle with specialized computer software, making it possible for them to apprehend thieves and recover the bait. The program will also act as a deterrent, since there is no way for a thief to identify which bikes may be equipped with the GPS.
Bicycle theft is one of the most reported crimes on the St. George campus, with an average of two or three thefts a week. U of T police are committed to deterring theft from campus whether its bikes or other personal property, said Franchi, who also co-ordinated the introduction of the successful STOP Theft program for laptop computers last year, another Canadian first.
For $20 members of the community can register their laptops with campus police and the device will be recorded on a police-accessible database. A special bar-coded plate is affixed to the computer, which can only be removed with great difficulty. Beneath the plate is a chemical etched “tattoo” denoting the device as stolen property, effectively diminishing its street or resale value. Since its introduction, some 1,300 laptops have been registered and only one or two have been reported missing.
“Our next goal after the implementation of the Bike Bait program is to introduce a STOP Theft program for bikes. We hope to have this up and running by the end of October and for a similar price,” he said.
This article is reprinted from News@UofT.