St Albans Business Crime Partnership empowers local businesses to share crime incidents and offender activity via the Disc app and collaborate with Hertfordshire Police to reduce offending in St Albans city centre.

St Albans BID area businesses are being encouraged to start using the community safety Disc app being launched in June. The app helps businesses share current safety and crime matters letting each other know who the offenders are so they can better protect themselves and their property, staff and customers.

Disc is a secure smartphone app  which can also be accessed securely via  desktop.  The Disc system is GDPR compliant because when registering to use the system, the BID member business must agree to all the Terms and Conditions of the Business Crime Partnership. Only BID members and legitimate community safety partners, e.g. Police, will have access to the information stored in the app.

Sgt Simon Totten, St Albans Neighbourhood Policing Team, says, “The collaboration between the BID-led business crime partnership and Hertfordshire Police can be a game changer for targeting those prolific offenders identified by businesses and shared on the app. The simple message is that if you don’t want information about you shared; don’t offend in St Albans.”

Businesses’ collective pooling of information can build a body of evidence to help businesses quickly identify offenders and safety issues so they can take remedial action such as refusing entry onto their premises. As the scheme develops, there will be tools in place to ban offenders from participating business premises. Intelligence shared with the police could lead to a formal arrests and in some cases Community Behaviour Orders which could restrict offender’s entry to the town centre.

Vivien Cannon, BID manager said, “There is no suggestion here that St Albans is an unsafe place to work or visit but it’s generally understood that crime such as shoplifting has increased; a symptom of the cost of living situation.  Whether sharing petty nuisance behaviour or criminal activity, businesses now have a practical tool available to them to help ensure they and St Albans city centre can remain a safe space.”