BBC has a story of a burglar being caught by virtue of text messages.

Christopher Coulthard, 43, was arrested when a builder who had signed up for police text alerts saw him entering a church near Brandon in Suffolk. Police had sent 6,000 texts asking Suffolk residents to be on the lookout.

I’m wondering about the Police Direct service cited by the news article, particularly whether it’s a free service, or if subscribers are charged a subscription or per-message fee for receipt of SMS alerts. I mean, it would be great if it’s free. In fact, being a public service, emergency and security alert services should be available to mobile subscribers for free!

I think security alerts coupled with location-based services would be a great feature for any telco to offer.

{ via Dvorak.org }