Stolen Bicycle Serial Number Validator
From Opendataday
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Owner
Proposed by: John Taranu Project contact: [1]
Best way and times to contact during RHoK 2.0 Dec 4/5 2010:: City of Toronto Open Data
Location Toronto/Canada, Rm 4-414, OISE
Group members:
- Jon Pipitone, @jonpipitone
- Jason Montojo, @jrrmzz
- John Taranu
- Stu Basden
- Ben Shymkiw, @iamsolarpowered
Documentation Location The best and easiest way to communicate with is is directly on our Google Docs working document: Working Notes
GitHub Repository RHoK-Stolen-Bike-Serial-Number-Validator
Latest News
We have a short sexy name for the tool! The application is now called IsThisBikeStolen.
Summary
Create a simple, easy-to-use mobile application to let users validate the serial number of a bicycle against a national database to check if it is stolen.
Background
Each year thousands of bicycles are stolen in Canada, and many of those bikes are resold to unwitting customers.
There is currently a way to register a bicycle: most police forces have a bicycle serial number registry, such as the Toronto Police's Toronto Bicycle Registry. Unfortunately, few people know how to check the stolen status of a bike they buy secondhand. As a result, people tend not to bother registering their bikes, since it is so unlikely that a stolen bike would ever be checked against the registry.
The solution is twofold. Public awareness campaigns can increase the number of registered bikes. But for the system to be truly effective, as many used bicycles as possible should be checked when they change hands.
There is a public way to check the stolen status of a bike using the CPIC system used by police forces across the country. Unfortunately, it is buried deep inside a government site, and virtually nobody knows about this system.
Use Case/User Story/Scenario
Anyone looking to buy a used bike can access the app and check the serial number of a bike they are about to purchase secondhand from Craigslist or Kijiji ads. They would type in the serial number of a bike they are looking at buying and the system can alert them if that bike is stolen.
Similarly, bike retailers and community bike workshops, many of which do not have internet access, can use the app to easily check the status of the bikes that come in for service, so they can avoid unknowingly handling stolen bikes.
This tool can reduce thefts in the first place if thieves now know there is a chance that potential customers can check the status of the bike they are selling.
Questions
- Why is there a lag in getting stolen bike data into the CPIC system?
- What should people do if they discover they bike they looking at buying is stolen?
- How do people report their bike as stolen?
Description and Constraints
- The CPIC database is fed stolen bike data only once a week, so it may not have serial numbers that have just been reported as stolen.
- Serial numbers are not necessarily unique from different manufacturers. The CPIC system does not include manufacturers in the search, nor does it return any additional information about the bike.
Extra Credit
- It would be great to easily report to the police when a bike serial number is confirmed to be stolen. However, the police do have pretty stringent requirements for reporting crimes.
- Since some letters and numbers are difficult to distinguish (e.g. O/0, 1/l/I), the check should be run repeatedly for all combinations of serial numbers.
Similar projects and Resources
Here's a serial number of a stolen bike:
- LY22361081 (reported here)
- G060919190 (reported here)
What next and Sustainability
Current State and Solutions
Prior Art
Other bicycle registries (most are privately run): http://www.bikeregistrycanada.com/Intro.html http://www.nationalbikeregistry.com/ http://www.stolenbicycleregistry.com/ http://edmontonbikes.ca/registry/post/
