By Dan Buono
A new website that tracks crime at universities has been deemed inaccurate by university officials.
Ucrime.com uses Google map technology to map crimes in university areas, listing the alleged crimes’ locations, dates, times and natures.
The site was launched in August following the success of its sister site, Spotcrime.com, which is the largest accessible city crime database in the world, said Colin Drane, CEO of both websites.
“We don’t believe the information on [UCrime] is accurate,” said Renata Nyul, assistant director of communications and public relations, in an e-mail to The News. “It’s certainly incomplete and misleading.”
In Northeastern’s case, the website receives the information from The News’ crime log, Drane said. Crime Log entries are selected from Northeastern’s Division of Public Safety reports.
UCrime was created out of a need for a crime entry for university campuses, Drane said. This is difficult because most universities do not have addresses for their buildings, making it tough to pinpoint a crime, he said.
“We are another useful tool to get information out there,” Drane said.
Both websites are funded by advertisements. In the beginning, the site tracked a limited amount of schools, but the site was covering 200 universities within the first two months.
Drane said the site bases its selection on access to data as well as a university’s size and population.
Boston University officials have also deemed the site inaccurate in local media reporters, but declined to The News.
Northeastern does not post information on the site, and does not have control over what the site posts, Nyul said.
Drane said UCrime typically compiles its data from sources like police logs. However, he said the only university from which they do not directly use police logs is Northeastern because they are experiencing problems accessing the logs from the police force.
“On comprehensive review, this site is certainly not helpful in assessing crime-related incidents on college campuses,” Nyul said. “The only official information we release is to the Huntington News for the Crime Log, in addition to data complying with the US Department of Education’s Clery Act.”
Drane said UCrime is trying to increase the site’s accuracy by working with every city and university police force that the website reports. He said some technologies can be inaccurate and that is why there is a disclaimer at the bottom of the website, which states in part, “Neither Ucrime.com nor our data sources make any claims as to the completeness, accuracy or content of any data contained in this application.”
The sites have compiled information from both university and city police, who normally don’t communicate with each other, Drane said.
Drane said he hopes to receive better information from the police departments as well as university police.
“We don’t think this is the absolute answer to everything,” Drane said.
Associate Director of the Northeastern University Division of Public Safety Jim Ferrier declined to comment.
