Social Media and Web 2.0 applications have become an integral part of everyday life. Moreover, they inspire new opportunities for the advancement of security and crime prevention, for instance by the strategic collection and exploitation of information, communication and interaction of organisations for citizen-security, media and other crisis-management organisations.
Against this background, SMD4Austria gave an elaborated impetus for extending and improving the usage of Social Media services by the Federal Criminal Police Office (.BK). The consortium evaluated almost 150 international practices where Social Media services have been implemented. Applying an interdisciplinary and multi-methodical approach, three best-ranking Social Media Services have been identified and comprehensively reviewed in terms of legal, ethical and technical aspects. Moreover, the perspectives of security experts and potential end-users have been included thus ensuring the adaptability as well as the acceptance among all stakeholders.