Towards civic engagement in smart public security

One of the main issues to be handled in today's cities is related to public safety, which can be improved by implementing the smart city concept. Despite its relevance as means of achieving societal well-being, smart public security has not been much targeted by technological solutions developed to smart cities. In this paper, we introduce Safe Citizen, a mobile application relying on citizens' engagement to improve public safety. Resulting from a partnership between government and academia, this application aims to be an alternative communication channel between public safety agencies and population, which can now provide timely, enriched information about occurrences, besides supporting police operations. This paper describes how Safe Citizen was conceived through Design Thinking as means of perceiving the real needs of population. We also detail the main functionalities offered by Safe Citizen.