An anonymous service that allows you to send in a tip to Darien police has started, the Police Department has announced.
The tips are collected by a website, TipSubmit.com. run by a company called Public Engines Inc., which sends the information to police. The company’s “Confidential Web Tip Information System” appears to be part of its “TipSoft” services, which also include an application for smartphones and the ability to text a tip.
In the department’s announcement, only the ability to use the online service, not the phone app or texting, was mentioned, but on Tuesday, Police Chief Duane Lovello told the Board of Selectmen that the department has ordered the texting service as well.
“We’re going to have the ability to take tips shortly by text in our computer system and respond to those,” he said. “That’s should give the community another resource to use in contacting the Police Department.”
What the top of the tip-submission Web page looks like.
The Web page for submitting tips tells readers to remember not to give their name if they want to keep themselves anonymous, and tipsters are given a number so they can check back to see what police say they’re doing about the tip or what the tip resulted in.
By encouraging tipsters to check back, the website gives police the opportunity to ask further questions, even while the tipster remains anonymous.
The tip-submission Web page is a form on which tipsters can answer various, detailed questions or specified areas for various types of incidents or situations. Sections of the page include “Suspect Information,” “Vehicle Information,” “Crime Notes” and “Drugs.”
There’s even a section near the bottom where a tipster can upload a photo. If none of the questions fits into what the tipster wants to tell police, information can be typed into the “Crime Description” section of the form.
Here’s the police announcement:
Image by User:Parvi on Wikimedia Commons
Do you have information about a crime?
If so, submit your information anonymously. Tips submitted through this web site are encrypted, entirely confidential, and completely anonymous.
After submitting your tip, you will be provided with your own unique ID number that you will use when checking the status of your tip or picking up your reward. Never submit an emergency tip here. Please call 911 if it is an emergency.
Editor’s note: Additional information (Lovello’s comments and more information on the tip-submission Web page) was added to this article on Sunday.
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