AN AUTOMATED WHISTLE BLOWING SYSTEM FOR AIDING CRIME INVESTIGATION

By

CSC12-24 MOBILE APPLICATION DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATICS TECHNOLOGY
A Project report Submitted to the School of Computing and Informatics Technology for the Study Leading to a Project in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the degree of Bachelor of Science in Computer Science of Makerere University

Supervisor
Mr. Odongo Steven Eyobu Department of Computer Science School of Computing and Informatics Technology, Makerere University sodongo@cit.mak.ac.ug, +256-41-540628, Fax: +256-41-540620

April, 2011

Declaration
We CSC12-24 do hereby declare that this Project Report is original and has not been published and/or submitted for any other degree award to any other University before. Registration Number 09/U/13494/PS 09/U/13534/PS 09/U/19491/PS 09/U/13572/PS

Names 1 2 3 4 KAAYA STANLEY LUTALO SSEWAGUDDE FRANCIS NDENZI ALBERT GABIRO FLAVIA NABUKEERA

Signature

Date .

Approval
supervisor.

This Project Report has been submitted for Examination with the approval of the following

Signed: .. Date: .. Odongo Steven Eyobu

Department Of Computer Science School of Computing and Informatics Technology College of Computing and Information Science Makerere University

ii

Dedication

To our supervisor, Mr. Odongo Steven Eyobu for his efforts towards the success of this project and to our families for the endless support rendered to us.

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Acknowledgement
First and foremost, we give thanks to God for being by our side at all times to this day. We would also in a special way like to extend our thanks to our supervisor Mr. Odong Steven Eyobu for the assistance, and the guidance given to us me during the period of carrying out this project. Our sincere gratitude to the Uganda Police first in general and second in the various individual capacities of the Police personnel for the help they extended to us either directly or indirectly. Last but not least, we would like to thank our families and friends for their endless support.

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Table of Contents
Declaration ...................................................................................................................................... ii Approval .......................................................................................................................................... ii Dedication ...................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgement........................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ v List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. ix List of Tables ................................................................................................................................... x Acronyms........................................................................................................................................ xi Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... xii Chapter one ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Problem Statement ................................................................................................................. 3 1.3 Main Objective ....................................................................................................................... 3 1.4 Specific Objectives.................................................................................................................. 4 1.5 Scope...................................................................................................................................... 4 1.6 Significance............................................................................................................................. 4 Chapter two ..................................................................................................................................... 6 Literature Review ............................................................................................................................. 6 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 6 2.2 Whistle Blowing Defined ........................................................................................................ 6 2.3 State-of-the-art practices of handling whistle- blowing............................................................ 7 2.4 Present mechanisms for handling whistle- blowing ................................................................. 8 v

2.5 Conclusion............................................................................................................................ 11 Chapter three ................................................................................................................................. 12 Methodology.................................................................................................................................. 12 3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 12 3.2 Requirements Gathering ....................................................................................................... 12 3.2.1 Document analysis ............................................................................................................. 12 3.2.2 Interviews .......................................................................................................................... 13 3.2.3 Questionnaires ................................................................................................................... 13 3.2.4 Data Analysis ..................................................................................................................... 13 3.3 System Design ...................................................................................................................... 13 3.4 System Implementation ........................................................................................................ 14 3.5 Testing of the System............................................................................................................ 15 Chapter Four.................................................................................................................................. 16 Systems study, Analysis and Design................................................................................................ 16 4.1 4.2 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 16 System study.................................................................................................................... 16 Whistle blowing current Management Practices ....................................................... 16 Requirements Analysis ............................................................................................. 17

4.2.1 4.2.2 4.3

System Analysis ............................................................................................................. 18

4.3.1 Functional requirements ................................................................................................. 18 4.3.2 Non-Functional requirements......................................................................................... 19 4.3.3 Hardware Requirements ................................................................................................. 20 4.4 Systems Design ............................................................................................................... 21

4.4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 21 vi

4.4.2 Systems Architecture ...................................................................................................... 21 Description of architecture ..................................................................................................... 21 4.4.3 Use cases ........................................................................................................................ 23 Description of use case scenario ............................................................................................. 23 Whistle Blower ....................................................................................................................... 23 Police user .............................................................................................................................. 23 System administrator............................................................................................................... 23 4.4.4 Activity Diagram ............................................................................................................ 24 Description of activity diagram ............................................................................................... 26 4.4.5 Database design.............................................................................................................. 26 The conceptual Database design ............................................................................................. 26 The logical database design ..................................................................................................... 28 The entity-relationship diagram............................................................................................... 29 The physical database design................................................................................................... 30 Design of physical representation ........................................................................................... 32 Chapter 5 ....................................................................................................................................... 33 System Implementation, Testing and Validation of results ............................................................. 33 5.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 33 5.1 Implementation tools and considerations.............................................................................. 33 Whistle blowers module......................................................................................................... 33 The Police module .................................................................................................................. 33 5.2 System Functionality............................................................................................................. 34 The login interface on the whistle blowers module................................................................. 34 Police Module......................................................................................................................... 38 vii

5.3 Testing and validation ......................................................................................................... 40 Tested web browsers .............................................................................................................. 40 Chapter 6 ....................................................................................................................................... 42 Recommendations and Future work............................................................................................... 42 6.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 42 6.2 Discussion of key findings and experiences........................................................................... 42 6.2.1 Project Achievements..................................................................................................... 43 6.2.2 Problems encountered during the project ....................................................................... 43 6.3 Conclusion............................................................................................................................ 43 6.4 Recommendations ................................................................................................................ 44 6.5 Future work .......................................................................................................................... 45 References...................................................................................................................................... 46 APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................. 47 APPENDIX A: Pseudo-code For Major System Functionalities ................................................ 47 APPENDIX B: Sample Interview Guide On Whistle-blowing ................................................... 51 APPENDIX C: Sample Questionnaire On Whistle blowing....................................................... 53

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List of Figures

Fig4. 1 System architecture22 Fig4. 2 Use case showing interaction of different users with system environment...................... 24 Fig4. 3 Flow chart showing how the system leads to crime reduction..25 Fig4. 4 Context diagram showing how different users interact with system environment........... 27 Fig4. 5 Level 1 diagram showing breakdown of activties.28 Fig4. 6 Entity relationship diagram showing relationship between entities..29 Fig5. 1 Log in for whistle blower..34 Fig5. 2 Interface to present options to whistle blower.................................................................. 35 Fig5. 3 Interface to enable user send location36 Fig5. 4 Interface to enable user send personal information...36 Fig5. 5Interface for camera...37 Fig5. 6 Interface for recording audio.37 Fig5. 7 System logon screen for Police.38 Fig5. 8 Interface showing wrong authentiaction on login attemp39 Fig5. 9 Reports posted by whistle blowers on retrieval fromdatabase39 Fig5. 10 Detailed report of a particular whistle blower40

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List of Tables

Table 3.0: Summary of system development and implementation software..15 Table 4.0: Summary of Hardware requirements.20 Table 4.1: Reports Table....30 Table 4.2 Reports Details....31 Table 4.3 Accounts Table31 Table 5.1 Responses to various Test Parameters.41

Acronyms
SD DBMS IDE UML CSS SQL PK FK RAM DFD HTML PHP WAMP

Secure Digital Database Management Systems Integrated Development Environment Unified Modeling Language

Cascading Style Sheets Structured Query Language Primary Key Foreign Key Random Access Memory Data Flow Diagram Hyper Text Mark-Up Language Hypertext Preprocessor Windows Apache MySQL PHP

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Abstract

The increasing socio-economic development in Uganda has brought with it some negative aspects. Key among these is the increased levels of crime. The Police and other law enforcement agencies have played a significant role in the fight against criminality. Unfortunately, crime has continued to persist on a large scale. This can be attributed to a number of factors. Prominent among them is the fact that many a times, Police lack significant leads to criminal related activities despite the fact that the general public is a rich source of such information. The crime analysts resort to manual data analysis from field reports. Consequent upon that, there is often unsuccessful prosecution of the perpetrators of these crimes for lack of substantial evidence. To this effect, a project was undertaken. This project aimed at bridging the information gap between law enforcement agencies and the general public by utilizing an act of law that has for long been more or less redundant-that is, the whistle blowers protection act of 2010. This report is a detailed account of what transpired during the course of the inception, design and analysis, development and implementation of an automated desktop, mobile and web based whistle blowing system. Contained herein, is a description of the journey throughout this project. The report highlights what whistle blowing is all about and why it is such a unique solution to the high crime levels in Uganda. It then goes on to make a review of the existing Literature regarding the current mechanisms employed to handle whistle blowers. The report then gives a description of the logical sequence of processes followed to put the concept of an automated whistle blowing system into a practical reality. This covers the requirements gathering, how the system would be designed, and how it would be thereafter implemented and tested. The actual systems study, analysis and design are then described in detail followed by the actual system implementation, testing and validation of results. As a result of all the aforementioned activities of this project, a number of outcomes emerged. Subsequently, an analysis of these outcomes is done by describing the project results, problems encountered and experiences gained. This then leads to conclusions drawn from these experiences and recommendations made to that effect. Future work is thereafter described.

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Chapter one
Introduction
1.1 Background
It is no secret that in Uganda, organized crime and corruption are shaped by the lack of strength of the control and monitoring mechanisms on the side of not only the State but also the civil society. Uganda Police Annual report 2010 [1] indicates that the crime rates under key crime categories such as homicides, anti-narcotic and economic crimes are still alarming despite a very slight reduction over the years. Worse still, at a much more catastrophic level, cases of corruption have continued to rise exponentially in number. There is a general public outcry in response to the ever increasing and almost chronic corrupt tendencies in both private and public sectors. Some of those corruption cases have been brought to the limelight subsequently leading to months of hearings by special committees set up. Many a times however, such hearings hit a dead end as there is lack of any substantial information that can incriminate the alleged perpetrators. A disgusted Ugandan public is left to consume the fact that monies meant for social services such as stocking drug stores for government hospitals, road construction among others are instead spent on personal phone bills, lavish "Christmas packages," and fancy four-wheel drive vehicles. It is not just in the public sector that such heinous activities have occurred. There have also been reported cases of unscrupulous private clinic owners and doctors siphoning off grants meant for the purchase of medicines and other vital supplies. The fact that corruption has almost reached uncontrollable proportions is not in any way to suggest that for other criminal related activities, the situation is under total control. As a matter of fact, crimes ranging from simple traffic offenses and robberies to more sophisticated felonies such as drug abuse, rape, aggravated robberies, defilement and murders, among others as defined by the Uganda Penal Code Act [2], have also persisted on a large scale in many areas of the country. It is imperative to note, however, that the Uganda Police and its sister security agencies have played an instrumental role in trying to combat these crimes. They have established
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certain measures which include but not limited to; re-structuring and professionalization of the police force and sister security agencies, acquisition of modern electronic devices such as computers and forensic tools and carrying out more patrols in crime infested areas. Nevertheless, the aforementioned measures notwithstanding, crime has continued to thrive. One key element that has not been capitalized on by the police and its sister security agencies in the fight against crime is the involvement of the general public in a much more proactive role. The public has been left to play a role of a bystander as opposed to being actively involved in the fight against such a prevalent debacle. Criminals live in communities as everyone else. Others work in the same organizations as other responsible citizens. Members of the general public know these criminals. They have information pertaining crimes perpetrated by these criminals. Unfortunately, in a country like Uganda with entrenched corruption tendencies, despite the fact that corruptors and corruptees are often well known to relatively many people, they are however protected by a culture of silence, sustained by a combination of fear, apathy, complicity and even admiration. Few members of the public ever come forward to volunteer information to Police or any other relevant authorities regarding propagators of crime. Employees who know about wrongdoing of their colleagues are afraid to say anything for fear of losing their jobs. Even outside employment circles or work environment, people in local communities, are afraid to come forth and bring to the attention of Police information relating to alleged criminals who relentlessly commit heinous offences in those communities, for fear of victimization from those alleged criminals or their associates once they are let loose. From another dimension, even for cases where Police apprehends the alleged perpetrators of crimes, it is not uncommon that insufficient evidence incriminating them is presented during prosecution in the courts of law. This subsequently leads to the freeing of habitual criminals; who on release, descend on their communities and terrorize them once more. This can be blamed on a number of factors key of which includes the inability of Police to carry out effective investigations as they lack any significant leads that could lead them to the actual perpetrators of the crimes. Many a times, The Directorate of Public 2

Prosecution has lost cases in court it ought not to have lost. Investigations have stagnated for years consequently leading to case backlogs. Every year, tens of thousands of cases are carried forward to the following year, uncompleted. As the usual circle of crime would dictate, fresh cases are reported every day, and, gradually, older cases left uncompleted lose the urgency they initially generated and, inadvertently, they die a natural death. All this can primarily be attributed to Polices lack of sufficient information relating to the alleged criminals yet such information lies abundance in the eyes and ears of the general public. in untapped

1.2 Problem Statement

The problem this project sought to address is lack of a secure platform that can enable the general public to proactively work with the Police in the fight against crime in Kampala, through volunteering information about the alleged perpetrators of various crimes. The general public is a rich source of information regarding criminal related activities. In most cases, they possess very valuable information relating to the alleged criminals, which information would be used to successfully prosecute these criminals in courts of law. Unfortunately, few members of the public ever come forward to provide such information to Police for fear of victimization. Despite the existence of the whistleblowers act as in [3], that was enacted in 2010 by the parliament of The Republic of Uganda to protect those who volunteer information relating to crime, to the relevant authorities, the status quo is such that there is no guarantee that such information or identities of the whistleblowers will be held in confidence. This is the case cognizant of the fact that the Police lack an automated whistle blowing system that can easily be monitored and subjected to forensic audits by the relevant authorities to ensure that there is no breach.

1.3 Main Objective

The main objective of this project was to develop an automated whistle blowing system that can facilitate the general public within Kampala working together with the Police in a more proactive manner by providing a secure platform over which they can volunteer information to the Police, regarding criminal related activities thereby mitigating crime.

1.4 Specific Objectives

i. ii. iii. iv.

The specific objectives were; To investigate in detail the current practices of managing whistle blowers information in the Police force of Uganda. To design a model of an automated whistle blowing mobile application system. To implement the model of the automated whistle blowing mobile application system. To test the automated whistle blowing mobile application system.

1.5 Scope

The project explored the issue of whistle blowing and how it is handled by the Uganda Police. The system was to be geographically limited to Kampala on a case study basis. Furthermore, from the perspective of functionality, the system was to be bound only within the confines of only aiding investigations by the Police by securely capturing information which might be in any of the following forms- text, images, sound clips and videos; from whistleblowers, storing it on a Police database and then enabling the Police to effectively manage that information. How the Police would choose to use the information captured and how they would carry out their investigations is their preserve and not of the automated whistle- blowing system. The application was to be run on phones that use the Android operating system platform.

1.6 Significance

The main objective of this project was to develop a mobile application system that will mitigate crime in Kampala by involving the general public in a more proactive role through whistle blowing. It was anticipated that on completion of the system, a number of benefits would be realized as stipulated thus;

i.

The study highlighted the need for increased focus on, and better management of information forwarded by the general public regarding criminal activities within their communities, significantly reducing crime. In fact, it would be a steering factor towards 4

achievement of Uganda Polices objectives which include among others; high degree of professionalism, efficiency and transparency in their investigations and in the handling of reports and complaints from the public. ii. Most criminals are serial offenders, who often repeat these crimes once they are out on the streets. This vicious circle of arrests, followed by nearly instant releases, is a significant contributor to the loss of public confidence in not only the Uganda Police but also the justice system. It is important to note however that, these suspects are released because of insufficient information about them that can be used to build strong cases against them. An automated whistle blowing system would make such information readily available to Police from the general public. iii. When such a system were to be deployed in the field, the general public would be able to volunteer information related to criminal activities without worrying about the possibility of being victimized since the system would provide a high level of security. iv. Furthermore, with deployment of such a system, the general public would be able to fully utilize simple technological devices such as their mobile phones for the common good of society such as mitigation of crime in their areas or residence and/or work places. v. This study was also expected to contribute to the students knowledge of how mobile phone applications can be used to effect change in communities from another dimension compared to those already known. The ndings of this study/project are also expected contribute to ongoing research, exploring the field rapid commercial software development especially under mobile applications.

Chapter two
2.1 Introduction

Literature Review

The concept of whistle blowing continues to emerge as a new and crucial area in the fight against crime all over the world. However many have failed to embrace it largely because of the likely dangers whistle blowers face. There are higher chances of victimization; loss of employment for cases where the whistle blower is from a given organization and which hunt from the alleged criminals. As a consequence, crime continues to thrive in society despite the fact that the general public holds a vast amount of information regarding alleged criminals. This highlights the urgent need for security agencies such as Police to establish secure mechanisms over which information relating to criminal activities can be passed on to it from the general public. In this chapter, an in-depth look at literature about of the key issues relating to whistle blowing is covered. Whistle blowing specific issues such as a definitive description, methodology, platforms used, nature of content and security are discussed in detail. It aims to investigate the state-of-the-present and benchmark it with the state-of-the-art practices of handling whistle blowers and the information they provide and identifying the research gaps and requirements that this projects objectives intend to address.

2.2 Whistle Blowing Defined

According to Wikipedia [4], a whistleblower is a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities (misconduct) occurring in a government department, a public or private organization, or a company. The alleged misconduct may be classified in a number of ways; for example, a violation of a law, rule, regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest, such as fraud, health/safety violations, and corruption. Whistleblowers may make their allegations internally (for example, to other people within the accused organization) or externally (to regulators, law enforcement agencies, to the media or to groups concerned with the issues). 6

2.3 State-of-the-art practices of handling whistle- blowing

Whistle blowing has gained recognition internationally as an effective tool in the fight against unlawful and unethical conduct in governmental and business organizations, through the disclosure of information to an authority figure (boss, media or government official). Appropriate legislations are being put in place to adequately protect the citizens right to good governance in different countries of the world, especially as they fight for their right, acting as whistle blowers. A lot of research has pointed to the fact that a number of whistle blowing platforms exist across the world. Nevertheless, not so many people have been able to fully utilize these resources largely because of fear that their identities would be compromised and therefore undesirable repercussions. However, there are a few guidelines that have been suggested by various researchers on how a standard whistle-blowing platform/system should be. According to Strandvejen [5], a whistle blowing system should be completely a confidential, neutral and informal channel that gives employees in the case of an organization and/or other people in communities a fair opportunity to disclose information about irregularities that may occur in the organization or their localities. The system should ensure that; i. ii. iii. There is proper compliance to ethical guidelines and standards. There is voluntary participation on the side of the whistle blower. There is proper confidentiality. Confidentiality is described as communication that must be kept secret. All contact with the whistle blowing system should be treated in confidence, and the whistleblower is guaranteed full anonymity, unless the person in question wishes to come forward. iv. The whistle blowing system supports the development of practical opportunities and processes for improving this communication channel.

v. vi.

There is proper security on the channel of communication. The platform should be nearly impenetrable to breaches. OpenLeaks [6], a web based organization that provides a platform for whistleblowers on the web states that; For effective whistle blowing, first the recipient has to securely receive the documents, and second, she or he needs to be able to publish them in a robust, uncensorable, and effective manner. Therefore a whistle blowing system should specifically focus on the reception of data in a manner that is as secure as possible. The major form of electronic whistle blowing platforms in the world today is web based. There are a number of websites specially dedicated to exposing fraudulent practices in mainly government institutions. However, whereas this method could be useful in countries that have wide access to internet, it is not effective for third world countries like Uganda where internet is largely a privilege to a few. On the other hand, the mobile phone industry has expanded so immensely that even in the remotest of villages; mobile phones are no longer a luxury. Hence, it goes without say that a mobile based whistle blowing system is by far of more significance than its web based counterpart.

2.4 Present mechanisms for handling whistle- blowing

The Ugandan law as stipulated in the whistle blowers protection states that in case one has information regarding any criminality or impropriety, such a person can make disclosures internally to their employers or to the following institutions for the case of external disclosures; The inspectorate of Government The Directorate of Public Prosecutions The Uganda Human Rights Commission The Directorate for Ethics and Integrity The Office of the Resident District Commissioner The National Environment Management Authority The Uganda Police Force

Currently, a number of whistle blowing platforms are used. By definition, a whistle blowing platform can be defined as the link between members of the general public interested in providing information about any improprieties in either private or public enterprises or in the local communities; and the relevant authorities in various institutions responsible for following up on the information provided to them by the whistle-blowers and subsequently take necessary action. Any person willing to disclose information about any wrong doing may contact the relevant authorities in any of the above mentioned institutions. A report from The Ethics Institute of South Africa [7] indicates that assurances of confidentiality and anonymity with respect to whistle-blowers protection are the main concerns in this field today. It goes on to say that a major shortcoming is the fact that the whistle-blowing facilities are not outsourced but situated within central structures of the relevant institutions such as Police. The report suggests that this may undermine trust in the facilities, especially as there may be concern regarding the safeguarding of anonymity. In an organization whose central structures are small and populated by only a few hundred employees, people may fear that their voices will be recognized when they phone. Relevant institutions may set up hotlines on which can be used by the public to reveal information pertinent to a criminal activity. There could also be whistleblowing websites dedicated to enabling people log in complaints or reporting about particular incidents of criminal nature. Reporting electronically, using an intranet or email based system is generally not trusted as it limits the amount of people that may be in a position to report or leaves identity traces. For centrally based and internally operated whistle blowing mechanisms, it is not expected that those in the country structures will reap the full extent of benefits intended by the whistle-blowing policy. There also seems to be no specific provision for anonymous reporting. Normally this would entail the making available of a case number that an anonymous caller could use to identify him or herself when providing further information or requesting feedback. If the anonymous reporting option is not clearly communicated, it is only prudent to conclude that potential whistle-blowers, already nervous and potentially fearful, will rather not report.

In the same report, it is shown that whistle-blowing facilities may also fall victim to bogus reports submitted to those playing office politics or more seriously by those attempting to harm the reputation of opponents. Again, those trained within a forensic field, eager to investigate and sanction may not possess the presence of mind to assess all reports for authenticity before commencing an investigation. From a reputational point of view, the damage may then already be done even if nothing incriminating is found. James et al. [8] in a paper about whistle-blowing on the web note that frequently, would-be whistleblowers lack the resources or the know-how to report effectively on improper business practices. In the same paper, it is shown that hundreds of websites are available to offer support and guidance for anyone who is interested in becoming a whistleblower. The information provided at each of the sites varies greatly in scope, focus, and quality. For example, there are several websites that are designed by government agencies to provide information about whistle blowing with regard to the areas under their regulation. A number of what appear to be watchdog organizations provide "how to" information as well as encouragement for whistleblowers. Review of these kinds of websites highlighted some very interesting themes reflecting underlying ethical issues. For example, there is encouragement and moral support for what is perceived as a long, hard fight with the odds against the whistleblower. Clearly the whistleblower is challenging a formidable organization in society, whether it is a government or corporate entity. This raises the image of David and Goliath and the perils associated with such a challenge. Writers of websites appear to be very realistic about the risks associated with such an undertaking. At the same time, however, there is great detail about how to develop a careful strategy for whistle blowing. There are several common characteristics of individual whistleblower web pages. Many whistleblowers seek to recount, in detail, the circumstances surrounding their case. Frequently, corroborating information is offered in the form of media accounts, copies of letters, reports and other documents. Some sites offer sound clips recording alleged incidents of verbal harassment of the whistleblower by co-workers. Because many whistle blowing cases are protracted, the volume of material found at some sites is quite extensive, with somewhat complicated 10

chronologies offered. Supportpast, present, and futureis a theme developed by many whistleblowers on the web. Official letters of support and corroboration are posted, as are the names of supportive organizations and legal counsel. Communication with and support from visitors to the website is earnestly solicited. Several sites feature guest books which visitors can sign and use to post comments. At other sites, form letters are available so that visitors may send letters via email, of course, to various government officials in support of the whistleblowers cause. Nearly all whistleblowers on the web make clear that their action has exacted a considerable toll. Frequently they have lost jobs and suffered other indignities. These accounts are often compelling.

2.5 Conclusion

The available literature on the subject of whistle blowing highlighted that indeed it is an undisputable fact that there has been a substantial increase in the recognition of the importance of whistle blowing as a means of reducing corruption and other crimes by disclosure of information about illegal, dangerous or unethical activities by government and private organizations. However, it was shown that there is a significant need to improve on the mechanisms of whistle blowing such that anonymity and confidentiality, major determining factors of whistle blowing, are well catered for.

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Chapter three
Methodology
3.1 Introduction
The project was carried out using a case study approach. This is because the area of research was focused on an organizational management issue of how information from whistle blowers should be managed. The study was therefore carried out in an organizational/institutional setting (in this case Uganda Police) which provided for a real organization/institution presentation of facts. A mobile phone application was chosen to address the main concern of most of the existing whistle blowing platforms which is security. As opposed to web based platforms which can easily be breached and compromised, the automated whistle blowing system is not easily susceptible to attack owing to the fact that the information captured from the whistle blowers can only be accessed by authorized Police personnel.

3.2 Requirements Gathering

The following methods were used to achieve the first objective of investigating in detail the current practices of managing whistle blowers information in the Police force of Uganda and subsequently obtain different user requirements for the system to be developed.

3.2.1 Document analysis

Different literature relating to whistle blowing platforms especially development of software applications to facilitate whistle blowing was reviewed. This process highlighted the problems associated with management of information from whistle blowers. It provided an insight into the causes and possible determinants limiting institutions like Police from fully implementing effective whistle blowing mechanisms. This exercise aimed at highlighting and benchmarking the practices being used by institutions that handle whistle blowing to manage information from the public against the state-of-the-art standards and practices. 12

The document review included academic journals, text book material, electronic material from websites, academic papers among others.

3.2.2 Interviews

Interviews were used in order to investigate and establish the practices and processes that Uganda Police uses to obtain and manage information from whistle blowers. This process also intended to gather information about the challenges, problems and gaps that were being faced in Polices whistle blowers information management practices. Furthermore, this process was used to gather requirements for the system design. Purposive sampling was used to identify the respondents that are key and conversant with the end-to-end processes of obtaining and managing information from whistle blowers, that is, key staff of the Police that are particularly tasked with whistle blowing. An interview guide was used to interview selected Police officers.

3.2.3 Questionnaires

Questionnaires were used in order to investigate how the general public views the current whistle blowing mechanisms, and their ideas on how they can be improved to make them more effective as well as their opinion on using an automated system for the same purpose. This consequently translated into gathering of user requirements, this time from the general public.

3.2.4 Data Analysis

Data analysis was carried out to gain insight of the process and practices of disclosure of information by whistle blowers and therefore the management of such information. Data was grouped and categorized to establish signicant patterns. It was anticipated that the analysis of collected data would be used to identify the process and information ows. User and system requirements for designing the automated whistle blowing system were therefore identified.

3.3 System Design

The model of the automated whistle blowing system was designed based on the identied user and system requirements. The functional requirements guided the description of the data and processes to be handled by the system. UML was used to model the system behavior. Use cases 13

and sequence diagrams were used to represent the key functions of the system and how they will perform. Entity Relationship Diagrams were used for logical data modelling. These methods were used because they provide an easier way of communicating with users. Software prototyping was used as the design method. This allowed the users to interact with the system as it is being developed, and to guide the researchers to ensure that all requirements are taken care of. The automated whistle blowing system is mobile based application system comprising two modules. The first module runs on a whistle blowers mobile phone. It is this module that the whistle blower uses to send information relating to a criminal activity to the Police. The second module consists of a Police database back end system together with a front end used to access data from the database. Use cases, sequence, architecture and entity relationship diagrams were designed to show the logical flow of information within the system. These were done using CASE tools. The CASE tools that were used will include Microsoft office Visio and Microsoft office word.

3.4 System Implementation

Implementation of the system followed the systems design task. The automated whistle blowing system was designed on Microsoft windows operating system platform. The whistle blowers module running on an Android based phone was developed using the Eclipse IDE. A WAMP server was used as the back end to host the Police database. The system has a database component that is implemented using MySQL database management system. The researchers used MySQL because it is based on an open architecture platform allowing integration with several other applications and database systems. MySQL is a freely accessible database engine. Apache web server application to provide the web server services to authorized Police officials who wish to obtain information from the database. PHP was used as the scripting language to make a connection from a web browser and to also retrieve information from the database. Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 was used to come up with web interfaces to be used to access the database and retrieve information contained therein.

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Table 3.0: Summary of system development and implementation software

Type of software Function

Windows 7 Operating system

Provided platform for the development of both the android phone module and the Police database module.

WAMP server

Contains Apache, a web server for provision of web services, MySQL as the DBMS, PHP for scripting purposes.

Android Froyo 2.2.2 Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 service release 1

The operating system version running on the Android phone Development of web interfaces module

Eclipse IDE for developers version: Indigo Development of the Android phone application

3.5 Testing of the System

The automated whistle blowing system was to be tested using test data sets to ensure it meets the functional requirements and system controls. Testing was to be performed in two phases. The rst phase would be by the researcher to ensure that all components of the system work as expected. The second phase would be by subjecting the system to sample users to ensure that the system meet the user requirements. Aspects such as system navigation, report suitability, system reports and general system functionality were to be tested. Phases one and two were to done iteratively especially where users establish that certain requirements are not well addressed and/or where new functionality or information was required.

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Chapter Four
4.1 Introduction

Systems study, Analysis and Design

This chapter gives a detailed description of the systems study, analysis and design processes. Contained herein is an insight into system study highlighting how whistle blowing is generally handled by the Uganda Police. Thereafter, an analysis of the system is done with its functionalities being stipulated. The architectural design showing the different sub-systems and how they inter-relate to one another, process model establishing the different processes that take place the sub-systems and therefore the system at large and data model of the system showing how various forms of data and information are handled by the system. All afore mentioned elements are presented by use of data flow diagrams, entity relationship diagrams and flow charts. Testing and validation of the system are also included.

4.2 System study 4.2.1 Whistle blowing current Management Practices

The Uganda Police force comprises a number of divisions referred to as Directorates which are specialized units used in the day to day performance of the duties of the force as stipulated by the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda and The Police Act. These Directorates include Human Resource and Development, ICT, Duty Free Shop, Operations, Criminal Investigations, Administration, Command and Control, Political Commissariat, Research Planning and Development, Interpol and Peace Support, and Logistics and Engineering. Needless to say that the Criminal Investigations Directorate in conjunction with the directorate of Operations are directly responsible for handling whistle blowing. Currently, there is no automated system geared towards reporting criminal related activities to the Police. The best a whistle blower can do is to make a phone call, send an email or physically go the Police stations and report any crime related activities. The information acquired from such whistle blowers is then stored in manual files and possibly to a less extent in flat files like MS Word or MS Excel. The Directorate of Criminal Investigations then uses such information to investigate and either qualify or disqualify the claims made by the whistle blower as the case 16

may be. Inasmuch as there is close cooperation amongst the different directorates of the Police in the day to day running of the activities of the force, there is lack of synchronization of operations carried out. Subsequently, many a times, information from whistle blowers stored in flat files or manual files ends up not being sufficiently collaborated as for instance there may occur for example discrepancies between the information gathered by Police personnel in the Criminal Investigations Directorate and that by in the Directorate of Operations. It becomes hard therefore to reconcile such information cognizant of the fact that the Police are usually overwhelmed by the number of cases it has to handle due to case backlog. Conclusively therefore, deployment of an automated Whistle Blowers system will automatically reflect upon the ease of work by the Police force by virtue of the fact that it will be possible to monitor all information in all Directorates form a central location in the ICT Directorate. Furthermore, it will be easy to follow up cases reported by whistle blowers such that they are brought to their logical conclusions since case backlog that can largely be attributed to existence of manual filing systems and use of flat files will be minimized.

4.2.2 Requirements Analysis

The main objective of this project was to develop a fully functional whistle blowers system. In order to achieve this, systems requirements needed to be clearly defined to ascertain what and what not the system ought to accomplish. These requirements were gathered from two sets of users. The first set comprised persons from the general public who will be using the Android application to access and send data to the Police database. These requirements were mainly gathered by use of questionnaires tailored towards eliciting information as regards how they would want to send information to the Police in the easiest way possible. The second set comprised users in the Police force in the various Directorates. The system requirements from this set were mainly acquired through interviews of the various stake holders in the Police force, and from the review of the business processes summarized through the process flow diagram as shown above.

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4.3 System Analysis

The requirements obtained as described above were grouped into two categories, that is, Functional and Non-Functional requirements.

Functional requirements defined the basic functions that system would be able to perform. Consequent upon the fact that the system consists of mainly two sub-systems, the Android application running locally on a phone possessed by a member of the general public and the application running on a desktop or work station or laptop as the case may be, in the Police department, the functional requirements were categorized based upon those two kinds of users, namely, the general public user and the Police administrator user. In identification of the functional requirements, effort was directed towards two major aspects-completeness and consistency. Completeness in a way that all the services required by users from both sets are defined and consistency in a way that there were contradictions as far as the definitions of these requirements were concerned. The summary of the major requirements is highlighted as per the different users is described as follows: Whistle blower: The user should be able to run the whistle blowing application on the phone and be presented with a number of choices as to what sort of information to work with. The user should be able to capture data in form of sound, images or video clips. The user should be able to compose text messages. The system should be able to send the data captured by the user and/or any text messages to the remote Police database. The system should also be able to authenticate user before connecting to the Police database. The system should be able to enable storage of information for later use. The system should be able to store the information sent from the android phone to the database. The Police Administrative User:

4.3.1 Functional requirements

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The user should be able to retrieve the information the information stored at will as and when required. The users should be able to access and manipulate information depending on the administrative privileges given to them. The system should be able to generate reports pertaining various statistics on the information contained in the databases. The system should enable tracking of location of whistle blower provided the sender permitted it to do so.

4.3.2 Non-Functional requirements

The non-functional requirements of the system were also defined. These dont describe the specific functions of the system but are rather concerned with emergent system properties such as reliability, response time, availability, security and store occupancy. They also define constraints on the system such as capabilities of I/O devices and the data representations used in the system interfaces. As much as possible, these non-functional requirements were quantitatively written so that they could be objectively tested. The following is a summary of the non-functional requirements for both the Police administrative user and the whistle blower; Usability: The system should be user friendly and intuitive to allow quick adaption by users. The training time for use of the system should be short. Accessibility: The system should be easily accessible. For the whistle blower, it should be a matter of launching the application on the phone. For the Police administrator, it should be a matter of launching a web browser and access the database. Reliability and performance: The mean time to failure should be minimal. The probability of unavailability should be extremely low. The rate of failure occurrence should also be low. Speed: The number of processed transactions per second should be high. The user/Event response time should be as low as possible. Robustness: The time to restart after failure should be low. Furthermore, the percentage of events causing failure should be low. The probably of data corruption on failure should be virtually zero. 19

Portability: The percentage of target dependent statements in the system should be low. System Security: Users with different access rights and roles should be set up in the system. The system should not allow non-registered users to access it, and only those users with administrative privileges should be able to add, edit or delete information in the system.

Size: The amount of memory required to run the system. This is critical especially on the application running on the Android phone putting into consideration the minimal computing resources of mobile devices.

4.3.3 Hardware Requirements

shown below;

A number of hardware requirements must be considered for the system to work effectively as

Table 4.0: Summary of system hardware requirements

POLICE MODULE HARDWARE RAM Processor Hard disk drive REQUIREMENTS 256 MB and above Pentium IV At least 50 GB WHISTLE BLOWERS MODULE HARDWARE Processor RAM SD Card Inbuilt camera REQUIREMENTS Single core 600 MHz 48 Mb 512 Mb Size 3 Megapixels

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4.4 Systems Design

4.4.1 Introduction
Systems design began after gathering user requirements and the current processes. From the analysis of the requirements, the main goal of the required system is to enable users send information relating to criminal activity to the Police database. At the same time, the Police should be able to retrieve this information and use it as and when necessary. The required system was not to include how the information obtained from the Police would be used for that is a preserve of the Police. The system limits itself to only capture, retrieval and management of information. The overall systems architecture was modeled, followed by the behavior and data modeling.

4.4.2 Systems Architecture

Like earlier mentioned, the system comprises two modules, a mobile phone application running on an Android phone and a web based database application module at the Police end. The architecture is globally (after integration of sub-systems) divided into four components, that is, input, processes, storage and output. The figure below shows the global Systems Architecture.

Description of architecture

The preconditions for this scenario is that the MySQL database at the back end in the Police department is up and running, the whistle blowing mobile application on the android phone of the whistle blower is installed. Furthermore, there should be connectivity between the android mobile client (the mobile application running on the android phone) and the remote server housing the Police database, that is, there should be internet. When a whistle blower observes some activity which is deemed criminal in their judgment, all they have to do is to launch the Whistle blowing application on the android phone. The application enables capture of data that will facilitate the Police in carrying out its investigations. This data may be in form of text, a sound clip, an image or a video. Its important to note that Android architecture comprises an inbuilt database SQLite. After capturing of data, the user/whistle blower then sends the data to the remote server housing the Police database storage of data. 21

Input

Mobile Phone

Desktop

Storage Whistle Blower Processes Authentication Capture Send Police MySQL Database
Database

SQLite Datbase
Database

Store Manipulation

Administration

Output Web display

Delivery Report

Figure 4.1 System architecture

When the data is sent to the remote MYSQL server of the Police, the users from the Police department with various access privileges can access this information as and when necessary. They access this information through any web browser and its through the web browser interfaces that they can manage and act upon this information as they so wish. 22

4.4.3 Use cases

Use cases were used to represent actors using a system and the different goals or functions they fulfilled. The scenario presented in the description of architecture above is summarized in the use case diagram below.

Description of use case scenario

The following is a description of the use case diagram with respect to different users.

Whistle Blower
Launches the application: the whistle blower launches the application on the Android phone. Captures the data: the whistle blower captures data in form of text, a sound clip, image or video. Send data: the whistle blower sends the data captured to the Police database.

Police user
Launch the application in the web browser: the Police user launches the Police module in any web browser. Access information: the Police user accesses the information depending with access privileges. Manipulate information, that is, edit, insert and delete: the Police user then can manipulate data depending on the privileges.

System administrator
Install system: the system administrator installs the system. Access information: the administrator can access any information in the database. Manipulate information, that is, edit, delete and insert: the administrator has the privilege of accessing and manipulating information in the database.

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System Launch application on phone

Capture data

Send data Whistle blower Admin

install system

Edit or delete information

Police

Launch application in browser

Access information

Figure 4.2 Use case showing interaction of different users with the system

4.4.4 Activity Diagram

The specific activities performed by each of the actors using the system are illustrated using the following Activity Diagrams/flow chart.

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User logins in

Try again

NO

Authentic?

YES

Capture/view information

Send captured information

Allow information into database?

YES

Appropriate conversions

Information stored

Information viewed

Insert/Update

Use the information

Data analysis

Report generation

Discard

NO

YES

Go to field and investigate

Valid Information?

Report writing

NO

Go back to field and investigate more

NO

Sufficient findings?

YES

Case be built?

Build case

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Prosecution

Figure 4.3 Flow chart showing how different the system can lead to successful crime reduction

Description of activity diagram

The flow chart above describes the different activities carried out in the system from the time the user logins in to the application on the phone, captures the relevant data, sends it to the Police database to the time users at the Police end access the information and use it as they so wish in their investigations to build or not to build a case depending on the merits of the situation at hand.

4.4.5 Database design

The design of the database was completed in three stages namely the conceptual design, the logical design and the physical design.

The conceptual Database design

Identification of entity types

Under this design, the following were done;

Identification of relationship types Identification and association of attributed with entity types Determination of attribute domains Build the local conceptual data model from user view Checking the model for redundancy Validating local conceptual model against user transactions

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login Administrator Create usernames And passwords Monitor and Update Capture data Automated whistleSend captured Blowing system Data Whistle blower

Generate reports View information In database Generate reports

login Police Edit or delete Information

Figure 4.4 Context diagram showing how different actors interact with the system environment The figure above is of the context diagram showing how different actors interact with the system. These actors include the whistle blower who sends information to the Police, the user at the Police who accesses this information and uses it to carry out investigations and the Administrator who is the overall manager of the system.

In addition to the context diagram, a level 1 diagram is used to show a detailed flow of data within the system as shown in the diagram below.

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Figure 4.5 Level 1 diagram showing a breakdown of activities within the system

The logical database design

Under this design, individual relationships between the different entities identified were established. Integrity constraints were also established. These relationships between various entities were implemented by use of primary keys acting as foreign keys in the foreign tables. 28

Based on the user requirements and the behavior model, several entities were identied. The following is the Entity Relationship Diagram that illustrates the different system entities and the relationships between them.

The entity-relationship diagram

An Entity relationship diagrams was used to show a detailed logical representation of the entities, attributes and relations of the data of an organization. Also represented were business rules (objectives, policies and procedures) which govern how data is handled and stored

Figure 4.6 Entity relationship diagram showing relationships and business rules among different entities.

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The physical database design

Under the physical database design, an implementation of the database on secondary storage was done. The physical design describes the base relations, file organizations, and indexes used to achieve efficient access to the data and any associated integrity constraints and security measures. The following were done at this stage of database design. A relational database schema that could be implemented in the target DBMS from the logical data model. The target DBMS (MySQL) was thoroughly analyzed to ascertain its definitions of PKs, FKs, NOT NULL data requirements among others. Base relations identified in the in the global logical data model were designed where each relation was defined by its name, a list of simple attributes in brackets, the PK and where appropriate FK, A list of derived attributes and how they should be computed, referential integrity constraints for any FKs identified. For each attribute, a domain was defined. This comprised the data type, length and any constraints on the domain. Also, an optional default value for the attribute was defined. The base relations were implemented using SQL

The data dictionary is stipulated in the tables below;

Table 4.1: Reports table

Field name Id Name Location/gps
Message Date added Status

Field type and size int(auto_increment) Varchar(250) Varchar(250)

Text Time stamp Integer

Description Primary Key Name of whistle blower Location of whistle blower

Message sent by whistle blower Date of report Status of report( read or unread)

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Table 4.2: Reports details Table

Field name Report id Image Video Audio Field type and size int(auto_increment) Varchar(250) Varchar(250) Varchar(250) Description Primary Key url for images sent url for videos sent url for audios sent

Table 4.3: Accounts table

Field name Id User name Password Fname Lname Field type and size int(auto_increment) Varchar(250) Varchar(250) Varchar(250) Varchar(250) Description Primary Key Name of Police department Password First name Last name

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Design of physical representation

In physical database representation, the following aspects were looked at; Determining the optimal file organizations to store the base relations. An analysis of the indexes that are required to achieve acceptable performance; that is, the way in which relations and tuples are held on secondary storage. A number of factors were used to measure efficiency. These included throughput (number of transactions processed in a given time), response time (elapsed time for completion of a single transaction), disk storage (amount of disk space required to store database files).

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Chapter 5

System Implementation, Testing and Validation of results

5.1 Introduction
This chapter describes the main outcomes of the project. Herein are the findings and presentations after the successful completion of the project. The different integral components identified during the Systems design phase were implemented in order to meet the user requirements and have a live prototype of how the system would work.

5.1 Implementation tools and considerations

Since the whistle blowing system comprises mainly two sub-systems, different platforms were used to implement both sub-systems. Below is a description of the implementation tools used in each of the sub-systems.

Whistle blowers module

The Android application running on the whistle blowers phone was built using the Eclipse IDE for developers. Considering the fact that there are a number of Android versions, the application was built to run on Android Froyo 2.2.2 version and above. There was large use of an inbuilt emulator in the Android SDK to facilitate testing of various components of the application before transferring those components to the physical Android phone. To implement various functionalities within the system, Java was used as the programming language. On the other hand, to implement user interfaces within the application, XML was used.

The Police module

This is a database web-based application. A database schema was created within the MySQL DBMS. The coding of the web pages with their different functionalities was carried out using HTML and CSS. The scripting language used was PHP version 5.0. Publishing the website was done on an Apache HTTP server version. All these were contained in web development platform called WAMP that facilitates development of database web-based The site was designed to maintain session information of the logged on user. This was a key consideration to maintain system security and ensure that logged on users have only the required

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access to dierent parts of the site. Furthermore, a number of access privileges were defined to cater for different user views for respective Police administrators. The system also provided for importation of data using a CSV file format because majority of systems can export data in this format. For purposes of this system, information regarding criminal activity a can be imported from existing flat file system to minimize double data entry. Data can also be exported from this system to Microsoft Excel for further manipulation and creating different reports. Users can access the system via any Internet Web browser and pointing the browser address to the Web server name or IP Address.

The following is a description of the system functions and operation. Relevant sample System screenshots are shown to demonstrate the respective functions.

5.2 System Functionality

The login interface on the whistle blowers module

name and password to proceed.

This is the rst interface that opens when you access the system. Users must provide a valid user

Figure 5.1 Log in screen for whistle blower 34

After user authentication and login, the following interface appears to enable the capture of the relevant information.

Figure 5.2 Interface to enable selection of what form of information to send Once logged on, the interface shown in figure 5.2 is displayed. This gives the user the option of choosing what sort of information to send to the Police. It is the same interface that the user uses to submit the data once capturing is done. This interface has additional functionality of showing GPS which is optional depending on whether the user wishes for their exact location to be sent to the Police.

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Figure 5.3 Interface to help user send his/her location

Figure 5.4 Interface to enable the user send his/her personal information 36

Figure 5.5 Interface for the camera

Figure 5.6 Interface for recording audio. 37

Police Module

The following interfaces are for the Police module of the system.

Figure 5.7 System log on screen This is the rst page that opens when a Police user accesses the system. Users must provide a valid user name and password to proceed. Users with administrative rights can read, add, edit and delete information in the system. Other users can only read the information.

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Figure 5.8 Interface showing wrong authentication on login attempt

Figure 5.9 Reports posted by whistle blowers on retrieval from the database.

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Figure 5.10 Detailed report of a particular whistle blower

5.3 Testing and validation

The researchers therefore kept interacting with users during the development process to ensure that the system prototypes addressed the user requirements. Through the development process, the researchers would first test the system mainly using cognitive walkthrough of the system with test data to ensure that the system behaved and performed as expected. Any errors or bugs would be subsequently fixed. The system was also subjected to user evaluation to ensure that the system met the set requirements. The users who were interviewed during the requirements gathering phase, were again used to evaluate the system functionality.

Tested web browsers

The Police module was tested using a number of web browsers that include Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Explorer, Opera and Google Chrome. Also, both the whistle blowers module and the Police module were tested using a number of parameters. The table below is a summary of the evaluation results showing the number of users who were used for system testing. 40

Table 5.1: Responses to various Test Parameters

Test Parameter System navigation User authentication Security Usability Poor Fair 1 3 3 2 Good 4 4 5 6 Very Good 3 1

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Chapter 6 Recommendations and Future work

6.1 Introduction
The role played by whistle blowing in the fight against crime cannot be disputed. Many crimes are committed today largely because the Police lack the means of getting any leads on the perpetrators of such crimes. The domain of this study was mainly providing a whistle blowing platform that could ease communication between the Police and the whistle blowers. The project focused on the area of ascertaining how the general public can be involved in a more proactive way in the process of mitigating crime. Existing literature and indeed the findings of this research pointed out that there are hardly any existing automated systems that could help in the fight against crime. The whistle blowing mechanisms that exist are usually not well managed, besides the fear of witch hunt. Furthermore corruption tendencies are in one way or the other encouraged by manual system as one has to pass through various personnel to make their voice be heard. This chapter therefore discusses some recommendations to that effect, together with the key findings and experiences encountered during the course of this project and suggests further areas of research.

6.2 Discussion of key findings and experiences

This project report has revealed that a mobile application is one of the most feasible ways of reaching out to the general public by virtue of the fact that in todays world; almost everyone owns a mobile phone. Furthermore, Android was particularly chosen because its an open source platform hence there are various forums that address issues emanating from use of Android applications. On the other hand, the use of Web technology to develop the Police end of the system was to foster information sharing between all key stakeholders in the Police. The web based system has the advantage of reaching a wider user base in an organization with minimal implementation requirements such as training, client installation and cost. User training is also minimized since most users are also already conversant with web interfaces.

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6.2.1 Project Achievements

A number of achievements were met during the period of carrying out this research project. First and foremost, this project opened the researchers to the fact that a lot of criminal activities take place in Uganda largely because the Police lack any leads to criminals many a times. The researchers therefore established that an automated system that would provide information about criminals would come a long way in mitigating crime. Having established this fact, the researchers went ahead and collected data on the ground pertaining current whistle blowing practices in the country. Members of the general public were engaged as far as their take on whistle blowing is concerned. This resulted into well formulated system requirements which were then used to design and develop the system. In the process of development, sample users were again involved by subjecting them to different prototypes until the final system was fully finished. Conclusively therefore, the most significant achievement of this project was develop a whistle blowers system to facilitate the Police in the fight against crime by providing a platform where members of the general public can capture information and send it to the Police where it can then be used to carry out investigations.

6.2.2 Problems encountered during the project

A number of obstacles were met during the course of this project as stipulated below; Lack of enough time to carry out all that was intended to do. The bureaucracy involved in interviewing personnel from the Police. Hardship in acquiring the necessary hardware to implement the system especially an Android phone. Insufficient funds to fully facilitate the project.

6.3 Conclusion

The main objective of this project was to develop a system to help the Police mitigate crime by providing a platform on which members of the general public could be able to report about any activity they deem criminal. This system - the Whistle Blowers Management System, was

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successfully developed and the researchers are condent that the main objective of this project was met. Whereas the system may require further development and enhancements, it provides a proof of concept that the public can actually be involved in a more pro active form in the fight against crime. It is the expectation of the researchers that this project will help the Police address the issue of managing whistle blowers information, and also add to the existing academic literature exploring this area of research.

6.4 Recommendations

From the overall journey taken throughout the course of this project and from the experiences encountered, a number of recommendations can be made. The following are some of those the recommendations. First and foremost from an academic point of view, the major aim of this course (Group Project) is to enable students in groups integrate the knowledge accumulated in the course of their study at University into solving a non-trivial problem by developing a computer application. However, the demands of such a feat are quite enormous putting into consideration the resources and time needed. To that effect therefore, it is recommended that in future, more time be allocated to such projects by reducing on the number of course units that are to be done along with the course units. Secondly, from the dimension of the subject matter addressed by the project itself, it can be ascertained that the automated whistle blowing system described herein focuses on a specic area of reporting and managing whistle blowers information. Although whistle blowing is a major step in reduction of criminal activities, it cannot achieve optimality when working in isolation. It is therefore recommended that more research be done on the broader platform across other areas of fighting crime such as forensics. These working hand in hand with whistle blowing will inevitably reduce crime. Furthermore, if such a whistle blowing system is fully deployed in the field, it is recommended that there is training of Police officers and the general public on how to use their respective modules in order to build capacity for fighting crime. To add on to that, since the Police owns 44

some few computers and also employs a few computer professionals, it would be imperative to form a fully fledged computer laboratory and equip it with the latest technology-both software and hardware to aid in the handling of a large bulk of information regarding whistle blowers. There is also need to sensitize the public on the importance of whistle blowing and encourage them to report criminal related activities. Since this application runs on Android phones, it would therefore be important to encourage people to buy Android phones.

6.5 Future work

Irrespective of the success that has been attained as far as this project is concerned, it is only prudent to note that a lot of work could still be done towards the improvement of the automated whistle blowing system. More modules can be added so that the application running on the phone can also run on Symbian and other phone operating systems. Furthermore, the security of the system was based on user names and password. Needless to say that more security features can be added by implementing encryption algorithms so that the system is less susceptible to attacks. The system also needs to be tested and validated in dierent organizational environments (various police stations) in tandem with a central location to ensure that it addresses broader technical and business requirements

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References
[1] Major-General Kale Kayihura Inspector General of Police, Annual Crime and Traffic/Road Safety Report. Kampala. December 31st, 2010. [2] The Penal Code act. State of Uganda: Government Printing office, 1950. [3] The Parliament of Uganda, THE WHISTLE BLOWERS PROTECTION ACT, Kampala, 11th, May, 2010. [4] Julian Spencer (2009,Aug). All about Whistle Blowing. [Online]. Available: http://www.wikipedia.org/whistleblowing [5] Whistleblowing ethics Ethical guidelines and Standards for the whistleblowing system. (Aug, 2002). Handbook. DK-2900 Hellerup. [Online].Available: www.mediationcenter.dk [6] James Cook. (1999, Nov). Whistle Blowing Around the World. [Online]. Available: http://www.openleaks.org/whistleblowing [7] Willen Punt Instituting a Whistleblower policy in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Ethics Institute of South Africa. Pretoria. Nov 2006. [8] James E. Fisher, William B. Gillespie, Ellen F. Harshman, Fred C Yeager. (1995, June). Whistle Blowing on the Web. [Online]. Available: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org /avp/law.com

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APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: Pseudo-code For Major System Functionalities
For Whistle Blowers Module On installation of the application for a first time user { Enter username Enter password } If(login details are valid) { Show(application main user interface) Onclick of textfieldButton { Interface for typing in text information Onclick of ok Go back to the application main userinterface } Onclick of audio { Interface for recording audio information Press record

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When recording is done, save and click back We go to the application main user interface } Onclick of video { Interface for recording video information Press video When recording is done, save and click back We go to the application main user interface } Onclick of Picture { Inbuilt camera is invoked Press take picture When picture is taken, save and click back We go to the application main user interface } Onclick of profile { Interface for taking on a persons profile Capture users personal information 48

Click send when done to capture the users information. We proceed to the applications main user interface. } Onclick of GPS { Click GPS to capture location of whistle blower We proceed to the applications main user interface. } OnClick of submit { Press the submit button to send all the captured data to the police database. }

Police Module Login If((username matches username in the database) and (password matches password in the database)) { Page is directed to the report report-details page which shows the summary of the report, time when it was posted and read more link. When a read more link is clicked, the background color of that particular report changes to grey showing that that report has been read 49

} Else { A login error is displayed on the login page } If (read more link is clicked on the report) Go to detail page { Page is directed to the real-content page where one can download the images, videos, audios, the reporter profiles and read the report details. }

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APPENDIX B: Sample Interview Guide On Whistle-blowing

MAKERERE

UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND IT

INTERVIEW GUIDE ON WHISTLE-BLOWING Researchers: Flavia Nabukeera, Lutalo Francis, Kaaya Stanley, Ndenzi Albert Gabiro Institution: Makerere University, School of Computing and Informatics Technology Course: Bachelor of Science in Computer Science Aim: This interview is aimed at establishing the current modus operandi as far as handling whistle- blowing in the Uganda Police is concerned. 1. How is whistle-blowing currently managed by Uganda Police?

2. What roles to do you play in the process of managing whistle-blowers information?

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3. What challenges are you currently facing in the process of acquiring and handling whistleblowers information?
....

4. What do you think should be put in place to make the process of acquiring and handling whistle-blowers information more efficient and effective?

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APPENDIX C: Sample Questionnaire On Whistle blowing MAKERERE UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND IT

QUESTIONNAIRE ON WHISTLE-BLOWING Researchers: Flavia Nabukeera, Lutalo Francis, Kaaya Stanley, Ndenzi Albert Gabiro Institution: Makerere University, School of Computing and Informatics Technology Course: Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

Aim: This survey is aimed at establishing the level of confidence and eases of usage of mobile phones for passing on information about criminal related activities (whistle blowing). Your sincere participation is highly appreciated and your privacy is of high priority to us. (Please tick where applicable) 1. In what age group are you? 19 and under 20 - 29 30 - 39 40 - 49 50 - 59 60 +

2. Gender: Male Female

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3. Have you ever heard about whistle blowing? Yes If yes, proceed. No

4. Have you ever participated in whistle blowing? Yes No

5. If yes, which of the following methods did you use in the whistle blowing? Email Voice call Physically reporting to the Police Others

6. Do you own a mobile phone?

Yes No

If yes, proceed.

7. On what kind of platform does your mobile phone run? Symbian Android Others

8. Are you familiar with phones that run on the Android platform? Yes No

If yes, proceed 54

9. At what level of expertise do you consider yourself to be with respect to Android phones? Novice Intermediate Expert

10. With respect to any application of machine learning you have used with an Android phone, please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with the following statements: SD = Strongly Disagree D = Disagree N = Neutral A = Agree SA = Strongly Agree Android applications are easy to understand. Android applications are engaging. The current applications under Android match my needs. SD SD SD D D D D D D N N N N N N A A A A A A SA SA SA SA SA SA

Getting started with Android applications is SD easy. Android applications are flexible. Android applications can be used to implement effective whistle- blowing. SD SD

8. What are your recommendations going forward as far as using Android applications for whistle blowing is concerned? .. ..

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.. ..

Thank you for your participation.

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