Google can be good for all sorts of things, from searching to shopping. Now, you can add crime-solving to the list.
Though some have claimed that Google’s Street View tool is an invasion of privacy, most of us enjoy the opportunity to check out our own houses on the web, or to check out a new friend’s home before dropping by so that we can avoid accidentally driving past it. (And it can also be fun to spot our old friend Waldo and other interesting occurrences on random Street View photographs.)
But now, Street View has been proven to be good for more than simply street-watching from your computer screen—the handy tool can also help solve crimes.
Last year, a 14-year-old boy from the Netherlands was mugged by a pair of twin brothers, and robbed of 165 euros ($230). He notified the police, but never expected to see justice, or recover his lost money—until, months later, he happened to scroll through Street View’s image captures from the street where the mugging occurred. As it turned out, Google’s camera truck had been driving by at just the right time to catch the two muggers in action. Though the muggers’ faces had been blurred out, the boy was positive that it was them in the photograph.
The boy went to the local police with his news, and Google passed over the original, unblurry copy of the image, which allowed the police to make a definite identification of the twin criminals.
The police force was surprised by the success of this novel solution to fight crime. “For us, it is unique,” a police spokesman in Groningen told BBC News. “The picture was taken just a moment before the crime.”
So if you’ve ever been the victim of a mugging, purse-snatching, or other random crime on the city streets, you might want to take a look back at the scene of the crime on Street View—it might be your chance to serve up justice through the Internet.