New York City will be developing a system for accepting cell phone pictures from citizens in its 911 and 311 call centers. PowerPhone, a 911 training and technology company, unveiled the first system for delivering cell phone pictures from 911 callers right to call handlers last August at the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials Annual Conference. Called Incident Linked Multimedia (ILM), it is part of PowerPhone's Total Response Computer Aided Call Handling software.In a recent study conducted in Europe, over 50% of cell phone users said they would use their camera phone to record evidence of a crime and 47% said they would take pictures of a crime in progress. While some public safety agencies have started accepting cell phone pictures to a generic e-mail address, PowerPhone's ILM system is the first that integrates these photos directly into a 911 call record.PowerPhone's ILM system works as follows:
1 - A cell phone user calls from their cell phone to report an emergency or suspicious activity (i.e., a suspicious man lurking outside an unoccupied house).

2 - The caller dials 911 to report the sighting and says she can send a picture of the man to help identify him.
3 - The 911 Operator sends a text message to the caller's cell phone requesting the photo.
4 - The caller then replies to this message with the photo attached. PowerPhone's ILM system stores the photo in an incident record for easy reference. The image can be forwarded to responders who are on their way to the scene. ILM also supports the transmission of video images from equipped camera phones. In addition to uses for 911 center, ILM technology can help non-emergency call centers such as the 311 lines that are being installed in cities across the U.S. According to InfoTrends, a market research firm on digital imaging, more than 50% of the 741 million cell phones in use worldwide are camera phones. This number is expected to grow to 87 percent of phones in use by 2010. So criminals beware, almost everyone has the capability to record your actions!