With the launch of a new streaming service, anyone can now go online and listen to the capital’s police patrol radio communications – but Kyiv police and lawyers are not even sure such a practice is legal in Ukraine.
Describing themselves as “proactive citizens,” the group of eavesdroppers started to stream conversations online by Kyiv police patrol officers “to keep track of the events in the city and carry out civilian control of the operations of the new police force,” according to the founders of the group’s website.
Since the Kyiv police use analog equipment in their daily communication, the conversations between officers are transmitted by signals represented by a continuously variable physical quantity and can be easily intercepted with an antenna or scanner and further streamed online with the help of a few computer programs.
The stream, named “Kyiv Police OPS” can be heard via TuneIn, a free mobile application that offers audio streaming of over 100,000 radio networks and radiostations worldwide both on iOS and Android devices.
A screenshot shows a front page of the main “Kyiv Police OPS” website.
Certain quotes by on-duty police officers are also posted online on Twitter and Facebook. After about a month of functioning, the radio has about 3,000 subscribers on TuneIn, about 800 on Facebook, and 1,000 on Twitter.
Controversy inside the police
The Ukraine’s cyberpolice department supports the initiative, saying that all the police actions are “entirely open for public. No information that could pose a threat is carried via this channel,” the cyberpolice wrote on their official Facebook page on Jan. 21.
But the founders of the online radio station are not willing to disclose their names, saying they’re afraid they might be punished by law enforcement officers and that they’ll be forced to shut down their stream.
“We don’t know how the authorities will react. They’ve not (announced their solid) official position yet,” they said. Despite the fact that some officials support us “it (still) seems like the police will look for a way to shut down this broadcast.”
The press service of Ukraine’s police patrol didn’t reply to an email seeking comment, but Anastasia Shmalko, a senior assistant to First Deputy Interior Minister Eka Zguladze told the Kyiv Post that the initiative could imperil the lives of Ukrainians.
“This is a nightmare,” Shmalko said. “I don’t understand! What kind of idiots would do that? This endangers the lives of police officers, as well as the lives of ordinary citizens.”
Another side of the coin
According to the vice-president of the Union of Advocacy of Ukraine, Petro Boyko, such eavesdropping is prohibited in Ukraine and could pose a threat to the police. If they are using special equipment and penetrating a closed frequency, then they would be breaking articles 359-361 of the criminal code.
“Any criminal could listen to it” and find out the current situation at a particular crime scene, Boyko told the Kyiv Post on Feb. 3. “It’s even worse when it concerns a crime they’re perpetrating themselves.”
Gathering and transmitting such information “isn’t the right thing to do,” Boyko said.
Volga Sheyko, a lawyer at independent national law firm Asters, agrees with Boyko. She said that if the police do not transmit their communications on open sources, interception would be seen as “direct interference in their work.”
“Collecting live data is one of the official responsibilities of the patrol police to disclose a transgression or crime,” Sheyko told the Kyiv Post on Feb. 4. “Once information from police communications is gained, it can be used in different ways.”
She said she thinks police actions should be transparent, and said “nobody can prohibit someone following a patrol car or running after police officers, or taking photo of their activities, but what’s the use and necessity for intercepting their communications?”
Since earlier Ukraine had no special police branch to patrol streets, this is a new experience for Ukrainians. As a result, there’s no legislation covering this issue – yet.
“I think (police communications) will be restricted on legal grounds, and this communications channel may be encrypted,” Sheyko said.
But the founders of the stream believe their project is completely harmless and, according to the law, legal. “There’s a norm within the Law of National Police (article 9) that dictates principles of transparency and openness of the police activities” if it doesn’t disclose state secrets, they said.
The broadcast covers only a few districts of Kyiv and the radio communications are broadcast with delays of up to two minutes.
Nothing new under the sun
The people behind the stream say they haven’t reinvented the wheel, and are adopting “a concept that has been successful in many countries.”
“There haven’t been any projects like this one in particular in Ukraine, but such a practice isn’t rare in the world – the United States, Canada, and Slovakia have police frequencies open to anyone. In America it helps (the police) find criminals,” they said.
Generally, listening to radio bands on police scanners is legal in the United States. These restrictions vary greatly from state to state as these are state laws, not federal ones. However, there are always two types of limitation: never use a police scanner while driving and don’t use it in the furtherance of a crime (in this case one can be charged in addition to whatever other crime the person is committing).
A New York Police Department officer speaks on his radio in Times Square on Sept. 22, 2013 in New York City.
And while airwaves in the U.S. are public property and information sent over them does not presume privacy, as established in the 1934 Communications Act, Ukraine has no laws on this issue whatsoever.
Meanwhile, the founders of “Kyiv Police OPS” are sure their activity will help reduce criminality and boost police popularity. The streaming was also added to the world’s largest platform for streaming live audio for public safety, aircraft, rail, and marine related communications, Broadcastify.
“This can only aid their (police) activities, because now hundreds of citizens will hear description of criminals – not just a few police patrols,” the stream’s founders said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Denys Krasnikov can be reached at [email protected] .
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