The power of crowdsource investigations
Can society investigate corruption crimes?
In modern time technologies make us closer to each other. We can write documents simultaneously on google docs, have multiple conversations by using messengers or just exchange information on social media.
In such online collaboration, we can solve even crimes. For example, Twitter users help Police to identify suspects in Philadelphia https://goo.gl/d1eJ6g
But can also we use such crowdsource energy to solve more complicated high-level corruption cases, where always exists a lot of relations, persons and complicated schemes (because corruptioners always want to hide all evidence)?
I believe, that it is possible.
First of all, the more people spread information, that can relate to specific crime, the more evidence will be receive. A lot of anti-corruption investigations stops because of lack of suitable information. And police or other prosecutors cannot prove or even find evidence, that will disclose a full picture of crime. For example, in Ukraine, it is a few hundred thousand investigative officials (police, prosecutorss, security service of Ukraine, etc.), but I am completely sure, that forty-two million of citizens can give much more suitable information and evidence of the specific crime than all official investigators can find.
Another more important thing is that crowdsource investigations will be more effective because of creativity and special skills of every person. For example, in Philadelphia`s case activist just use tool to identify persons by geolocation, that was not known before by police. So we should understand, that in specific anticorruption investigation every user potentially can give unknown before tool to find information, prove corruption relation or even solve the whole crime. The crowd of users can propose new creative approaches, knowledge or skills, that can be critical to the investigation.
And finally, I believe, that private persons can provide much more effective investigation by using legal instruments and open instruments, than some officials (especially in high-level corruption cases, where politics can influence on state investigators). So, active members of society can even become civic detectives, that fully solve the crime.
Inspired by these ideas, our team start working on WikiInvestigation project, a Crowdsourcing platform, that can help people investigate corruption cases online collectively https://goo.gl/bAABjH
If you are interested in this and you have read this article to the end - welcome, you have become a step closer to this dream. Let's realize it together!