Seattle police use twitter to recover stolen cars

It only takes a village to raise a child, but it apparently it take the Twitterverse to find a stolen car. This month, the Seattle police department became one of the newest Twitter users and will use @GetYourCarBack as a way to find stolen vehicles.

Consider it a poor man's lo-jack or an Amber alert for newly jacked cars. When the Seattle police get a report of a stolen vehicle, they will report on Twitter the year, make, model and color of the missing car with instructions to the public to call 911 if they spot the vehicle. The department will cross check 911 sightings to make sure the vehicle has not been recovered and returned to the proper owners, and the public is instructed to not make contact.

As of today, @GetYourCarBack has 761 followers but follows no one, and has tweeted 72 times about missing vehicles since December 1--mostly older model Toyotas and Hondas that are worth more in parts than whole--which works out to about 9 cars per day. The police haven't reported any recoveries, so it's not possible to tell if crowdsourcing for tips on stolen cars works. Several police departments around the U.S. use Twitter to post alerts and disseminate timely information, but @GetYourCarBack could be the first crime-specific Twitter account. And while the Twitter method may be a long shot for recovering hot cars, it may work better as a deterrent if people know that everyone on Twitter will be looking for them.

Source: Telematics News