OWL will be closed as of 31. October 2024, due to MOPAC stopping the funding for the platform. See MOPAC document.

I had been a Community Administrator on the platform until I resigned from Neighbourhood Watch in December 2023.

In the Farewell email from the OWL administration it says:

“OWL is the only communications platform that has kept everyone’s data safe without any data breaches or privacy issues. “*

See OWL’s full message to subscribers:

This message is coming from the company that created OWL, it is not a police or Neighbourhood Watch message.

It is with deep regret and much sadness that I must inform you that OWL will be terminated on 31^st October.

The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) will no longer be funding OWL and the Met will not take over its funding. Without funding to maintain and operate OWL, we have no choice but to shut it down.

OWL was adopted by 18 London boroughs over the last 10 years so that your local police, their partner agencies, and Neighbourhood Watch coordinators can send urgent messages directly to residents and businesses. Over 1,700 Met police officers were trained to use OWL and many diligently kept the public informed on local issues. Each year, 14,000 alerts and updates for Londoners were published on OWL which generated 6 million emails and 12 million push notifications per year.

Your Personal Data:

OWL is the only communications platform* that has kept everyone’s data safe without any data breaches or privacy issues. It has also provided 100% availability, 24×7 every year for the last decade. As per our obligations under GDPR, your personal data held on OWL will be securely erased in a timely manner following shutdown. There is no need to contact us to request erasure.

Proud to have been part of it:

Thank you for being part of OWL. During its time, many residents responded to appeals which helped the police find suspects, stolen cars and vulnerable missing people. As an example of how effective OWL has been in just one borough over a 5-year period, OWL members helped resolve £8.3m of crime and prevent £10m of further crime from happening. These are modest estimates based only on cases we were made aware of.

OWL helped boost public trust & confidence in the Met among the thousands who rely on OWL for information and reassurance. According to MOPAC’s Trust & Confidence survey of Dec 2023, 75% of boroughs using OWL had above-average trust compared with the rest of London. Boroughs ranked #1, #2, and #4 with the highest trust were using OWL. A survey among users in Enfield and Haringey showed that 76% said OWL provides the most up-to-date information from the police compared to social media platforms.

You may continue to receive messages until the end of 31^st Oct.

Stay safe, London.”

We thank Gary Fenton for creating and maintaining this platform for us all.

Tower Hamlets Crime Watch requests that you donate and verify your card holder details or provide proof of ID and address at the time of registration.

We are a personal, Tower Hamlets based platform and we get to know our registrants and provide personal messaging services.

Whilst anybody can register on Alert, free of charge, without any checks whatsoever. We have written to Tower Hamlets Police expressing our concerns.

Police Officers in general seem to have less time to directly engage with the public, other than via their dedicated engagement sessions, which are advertised on our event calendar when we get to know about them.

Our issue with Neighbourhood Watch platforms in general is that people can register without any verification taking place at the time of registration and now Ourwatch still continues this practise.

Having had 17 years of Neighbourhood Watch experience, I know that any platform, which doesn’t request personal checks from registrants is not safe to use. Police Officers no longer have the time to visit all potentially interested Neighbourhood Watch members, who want to be coordinators.

In fact, less people have the time to coordinate local community groups, with many different levels of computer literacy present with people.

In Tower Hamlets Crime Watch, we do not have any coordinators but enable locals, to join us for confidential discussions on issues relating to community safety.

When I got funded in 2011 to start a Neighbourhood Watch Association, local Safer Neighbourhood Police Officers actually spent the time visiting, potential coordinators to personally ensure their suitability for the posts, but that is no longer the case.

Tower Hamlets Council run Community Engagement Sessions encourage people to register with Tower Hamlets directly.

With the OWL Service stopping we are wondering what the future of Ward Panels is going to be because very little has been published about those either in recent months. The Funding arrangement with MOPAC demands that Safer Neighbourhood Boards must be in place and SNBs regulate Ward Panel meetings.

* I would respectfully like to add that TH Crime Watch also did not have any data or privacy issues. Whilst Ourwatch reported a data breach last year.

With Tower Hamlets Police using various Social Media Platforms to stay in touch, we recommended that Met Police use the Police UK platform to announce their public engagement sessions as a central knowledge base for all Londoners uniformly.

Hertfordshire police moved to Alert – Ourwatch in April. Since then, their NhW has massively shrunk in size and most of the volunteer coordinators have gone. Their membership is a mere 20% of what it used to be with OWL.” “Gwent NhW grew massively with OWL, 25% of all residents were signed up to it.”

I have been treated very badly by Ourwatch and lost all trust in the platform.

OWL informs me that they received 400 letters of support.

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