UK online crime map receives 380 million hits in a month

Government hails exercise in open data as a great success

The Home Office now says its flagship data sharing site, police.uk, is a resounding success with the public, garnering more than 380 million hits in its first month.

The site, which launched last month, provides street-level details of crimes committed in England and Wales.

“By enabling you to compare how many crimes have occurred in your area from one month to the next, we are giving you even more power to hold your local force to account on how they are dealing with the issues that matter locally,” said Nick Herbert, minister for policing and criminal justice.

“The sheer scale of public demand for street level crime and policing information since its launch last month has been incredible,” he added.

But the site got off to a bad start, with its servers buckling under the numbers trying to access it.

Meanwhile, others have been critical of the data used in the crime maps, saying it is both out of date and misleading.

South Wales Police, for example, said the web site’s maps were likely to misrepresent where incidents were taking place.

Elsewhere, the data.gov.uk site, which makes public data sets available, has seen the creation of more than 100 applications, including ones that allow users to check on scheduled roadworks and ones identifying nearby MOT centres.