QR Codes and Florida Law Enforcement

Quick response codes are common fixtures throughout Florida, not only as advertisement campaign tools for businesses but also as law enforcement aids. In the state, law enforcement agencies are using QR codes to help distribute relevant information to locals and help solve crimes.

Specifically, the Boca Raton Police Department has joined forces with several local retailers and, together, put up QR codes in shop windows. These codes, when scanned with a smartphone, will take people to a public message. The message is a simple safety reminder about locking vehicles, watching over personal belongings and other precautions to take.

However, safety messages are not the only things that these QR codes can do. That is not the only thing the codes do. Consumers who scan the codes can receive product discounts, too, from the host retail stores at the Boca Center.

This QR code campaign isn’t exactly new, but the BRPD and Boca Center are seeing positive results. Since they have embarked on this program, they have seen less people leaving valuables in their cars and, this holiday season, there were no more cases of break-ins and stolen purses or laptops.

While the reminders are not something that the public do not already know about, the QR code aspect gives these messages a kind of novelty. Plus, the safety messages indeed remind people of those things that they often forget.

The BRPD acknowledges though that the QR codes will never take the place of police officers out on the streets of Florida, but that they are a really good supplement or addition to what the officers already doing. And because of this, the BRPD can still see using QR codes in future programs.

Police officer Mark Economou said that down the line, he can see QR codes taking scanners to mug shots or descriptions of crime suspects that the BRPD is hunting down. Now this is something that has already been done though. Police in Vancouver in Canada are using quick response codes in an effort catch a serial sex attacker. Scanning the code found on the wanted poster will take you to photos of and information pertaining to the criminal, as well as to a surveillance video.