Do unit numbers fall under "sensitive"?

[davidbond21]

"Sensitive" is a subjective word. When I used to work at a waterpark, we knew that people listened to what we were saying, especially inside the park when people were within earshot of the radios. We conveyed "sensitive" info by obscuring it(i.e. 10-Codes, injury codes). Instead of saying someone had broken their leg on a particular ride, we'd say they had a 602-L(# being the severity and letter being the body part) at position #71. This keeps people except for those in the know from knowing what the hubbub is about. One of our cuter codewords, was if we found/saw a snake, we NEVER used that word over the radio, it was always "Mr. Squiggley was seen as such and such place."

On the flip side, listen to any EMS transporting to a hospital and you can just about get someones total medical history, along with current illness. Even better, our local PD, like to get on I-Call to have "private" conversations, and they really let loose; one of the officers is hispanic and on I-Call, it's easy to know they're talking about him from his lovely nickname "Beaner". That's in addition to getting a bunch of cell phone numbers, city and personal, officer names and ranks, and I have even have heard codes to the jail before(on the dispatch channels sometimes too, no less).

So "sensitive" is a pretty subjective word, and is up to the agency to define it. Discretion though, is your job, and to some degree the law, but from your posts it seems you don't need me to lecture you on it; though for the sake of our hobby, it's probably not such a bad thing to police ourselves on these things.

 

[RedPenguin]

Yes, I agree again

So "sensitive" is a pretty subjective word, and is up to the agency to define it. Discretion though, is your job, and to some degree the law, but from your posts it seems you don't need me to lecture you on it; though for the sake of our hobby, it's probably not such a bad thing to police ourselves on these things.

I agree completely. For example, I would assume, at least hope anyway, that the police department for example, that gave out all of their unit numbers, patrol locations, and some other misc info, would of course not give out information, such as when which officer is on duty. Though, you could easily get a list of every officer and even a picture by just going their website.

I guess I see how it's up to the agency, for example, the local bus company I spoke of, also claimed they got rid of last names on all ID tags. So I guess they are smart in some ways but not in others, because they claim they want no one to know their supervisor numbers, but yet, they often slip up and give names of each other. Though the rest of them seems to be not bad when it comes to security.

 

[davidbond21]

One thing I have found over the years is that departments that are "free" with information are also the same departments that have very good community relations, and those that are "tight lipped" have poor community relations at best.

V

Thats a good point, and one similar to another poster who said their police chief wanted to keep their comms open to the public to keep them informed.

Probably 3 times now, I have heard PD setting up a perimeter on some farmland that my house is in the middle of looking for somebody that has evaded (one time they were armed, and this was after leading the police on a chase and crashing his car and bailing). Hearing this I know to take a peek outside to make sure no one is immediately on my property(at least to the tree line) and then make sure the doors are locked and keep a watch out the windows.

I would think this would help the police in 2 ways; 1) if I were to see someone, I'd immediately call the police station and let them know their suspect may be on my property, hopefully resolving their chase and 2) it keeps me inside and out of their way(say I were traipsing through the woods on my property and came upon the police who may initially mistake me for a suspect, which wouldn't be good because I roam my undeveloped land armed because of vagrants and hoodlums that trespass frequently).

 

[WX5JCH]

You can monitor me anytime no problems here, 155.490, GP118 is my callsign. Now that's in Elk City.

 

[k8tmk]

The St. Joseph, Michigan city police assign a unit number to each officer. That number stays with the officer at all times, on duty or off duty. Most other departments in the county reassign unit numbers to whomever is on duty. I guess St. Joe city is smarter than the rest of the departments.

At least all departments use somewhat of a convention. Unit numbers have 4 digits, with the first two digits representing the department. For example, 1200 units refer to Lincoln Township, 1800 units to St. Joseph Township, 6800 units to St. Joseph city, etc.

Randy

 

[RedPenguin]

Nice

The St. Joseph, Michigan city police assign a unit number to each officer. That number stays with the officer at all times, on duty or off duty. Most other departments in the county reassign unit numbers to whomever is on duty. I guess St. Joe city is smarter than the rest of the departments.

At least all departments use somewhat of a convention. Unit numbers have 4 digits, with the first two digits representing the department. For example, 1200 units refer to Lincoln Township, 1800 units to St. Joseph Township, 6800 units to St. Joseph city, etc.

Randy

At first it sounded like a bad thing, when I read it, but then after, I was like wow, that does make much more sense.

Because for example, my local police, is like the other depts you described. I mean that they for example, always use the same unit number for each area(s) that they patrol. Now what's funny is, depending I guess on which cars are broken, their car number could be completely different than who they are. Also, because they sometimes switch around, seems to help this problem more.

So basically, they person in the car could be 651, but his car may say 652. So basically you can never go by car number. Though sometimes the numbers do match up. Some not even close, like maybe K9-X may be 652.

I guess the car and unit numbers do not cause a problem, as far as I can tell.

 

[LEH]

I've seen three methods of handling unit numbering.

1. When I lived in Tucson, AZ in the 70's, PCSO units were identified by their badge number, so they had the same identifier all the time. A disadvantage of this principle is if you have a two man unit, which designator do you use? Then the dispatcher needs to keep in mind which units are two man.

2. Some departments assign a designator based on the area the officer is patrolling. This number is the same for who ever is assigned that area at that time. This (and the following) allow determining information about the unit (Tucson broke theirs down by district, 1, 2, 3, and 4; then had an alpha A-one man, B- two man, U- Sargent; then two digits to ID the area).

3. A variant of this is the numbers remain consistent for the area, but there is a number for each shift (Newport News does this). Then it is up to the department to determine if the same officer is assigned to that area when they are working.

 

[RedPenguin]

Problem I ran into....

That is a fine line. The way I read it you know that Portable 2 is a person and not a unit. That to me is "sensitive" if you post a person's name. Now to list it as Portable 2 as maintance is ok but to list Portable 2 is John Smith would be wrong. To have that for your own use is fine but to put it out for everyone then it is "sensitive". Now about an agency giving out information a lot of the time it is easier to say no than to 1.) know what it is, 2.) know if it is ok to give it out, 3.) know who to ask to about 1 or 2. Remeber most radio users are just that, users. I could talk two half our department or more and ask what the dispatch freq. is and they wouldn't know without getting the radio book from the engine or patrol.

I know I already quoted you on this but I have an update that again relates to what you said.

From listening for a tad bit, I have found out probably why they consider this information so sensitive.

I though like most agencies, they probably had for example Portable 5 for anyone who is Dispatcher Supervisor or Portable 9 for anyone who is Roads Supervisor. That appearntly is not the case.

What they seem to do is, the two guys who are dispatcher (non-supervisor well no supervisor in their title, but I guess they technically supervise the drivers) have assigned numbers, and it looks like even though 5 and 9 were definite titles, it appears that if someone new appears, those numbers easily could change.

Finding that out also clears things up for me, because I wondered how they came to their number list. I mean, if you look at the numbers you already know, it's like everyone was assigned numbers at random.

Though, I still find it funny, that they want to use numbers instead of names for Super/Dispatchers(when not being the current Dispatcher (in that case they are just called Dispatch)) yet, constantly the drivers and even the Portables themselves refer to each other by name. Seems to kinda blow the whole thing, LoL.

EDIT: Does anyone know exactly why a bus company would have two guys both named Director of Operations? Just struck me as confusing to the general public. I mean, I can see having a Dispatch Super, Roads Super, but two Director of Operations, and really the company isn't really a huge city operation, like it's the MTA in NYC or something.