On June 15, COMPOSITE invited police officers and researchers to the first workshop on ‘Social Media as Tools for  Police Communication’ to Birlinghoven Castle in the German town of Sankt Augustin. The workshop was part of COMPOSITE’s activities in the Work Package ‘technology adaptation’ and followed the publication of the ICT Trend Report in European Policing that pointed towards the rising relevance of social media for police work.

At the workshop, police officers from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany discussed together with researchers the current challenges when using social media as a tool for police communication.

Comparing the perspectives and approaches by different police forces of the three countries showed that there are widely differing ways of using social media, and that police in Europe adopt differing routes for making it part of an overall internet strategy for policing.

After the report, the workshop also prepared the next research stage in this Work Package as it furthered our search for best practices with regards to the usage of ICT in policing.

For any further questions, please contact Sebastian Denef at

sebastian.denef@fit.fraunhofer.de.