Company pushes Neighborhood Watch concept ahead with Web-based service

When an elderly man recently went missing, the Henderson Police Department used traditional methods of tracking down missing persons, including distributing the man's photo to news media and placing it on the department's website.

But Henderson police also implemented a new strategy -- a Las Vegas-based online alert system called AlertID. The Web-based platform pulls information from law enforcement and public safety agencies for distribution to users at no cost through text or email. Users can sign up at AlertID.com and designate the area where they want to be kept informed. The site updates every 15 minutes.

Henderson police, in this instance, pushed the missing person alert to users within a few miles of the spot where the man was last seen, and did find him but not through AlertID.

AlertID is part of the movement toward the centralization and digitization of information. First it was our social lives, then it was medical records, now it's the reporting of crimes and policing of communities.

The company was launched two years ago in Reno but recently moved its headquarters to Las Vegas. It has about 20 employees and plans to expand.

The services it provides are free to both law enforcement agencies and users. AlertID's chief mission is not to make money, founder Keli Wilson said, but to make communities safer.

"One of our goals is to help Las Vegas get off the most dangerous cities list," she said.

The company does have a business model, however. It offers sponsorship programs for other businesses to advertise on the AlertID website and on mobile and tablet applications.

Some 60,000 Nevadans have signed up for AlertID. The company plans to expand nationwide, working with sheriff's offices, fire departments and other agencies to notify users of crimes or events that affect their quality of life: burglaries, fires and sex offenders' registered locations among them.

But AlertID doesn't just send out texts about crimes. The website also has a Community Watch section, which adds a social media element to AlertID's services. Users can comment on an alert, much as they might react to a Facebook status update. Residents can also post photos of suspicious activity they see and send messages to law enforcement with tips about crimes.

AlertID Chief Executive Officer Ken Wiles, who also serves as chairman of the Nevada Economic Forum, said public safety agencies across the country have already reached out to the company after hearing Washoe County Sheriff Mike Haley rave about the county's 32 percent drop in crime since AlertID became active there.

University of Nevada, Las Vegas sociology professor Andrew Spivak, who studies criminology, said it's difficult to gauge the effectiveness of Neigborhood Watch programs, which is essentially what AlertID is. However, a shift toward "technologically sophisticated" forms of Neighborhood Watch, which grew popular in the 1990s, will become more common, he added.

"Web-based technology like the AlertID system will likely play an important role in the way community policing is implemented in the future," Spivak said.

More than 19,000 Henderson residents have signed up for the website since AlertID partnered with the city in August. Henderson Police Department spokesman Keith Paul said the most noticeable change since then is that more residents are engaging in their community and meeting their neighbors.

The Metropolitan Police Department in Las Vegas on March 1 officially announced it would use AlertID after conducting internal tests of the services on New Year's Eve and at the recent NASCAR races. AlertID also allows officers to send alerts to the department, which are then distributed within the force.

Lt. Jim Seebock led the social media committee within Metro that selected AlertID when the department was looking for a centralized, Web-based alert service.

"This company offered something no one else was doing, pushing crime data out to the community. With the emerging trend with texting and smartphone use, this company offered that ability for us," Seebock said.

Contact reporter Caitlin McGarry at cmcgarry@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273.