The Crime Stoppers Guarantee
- EFN Staff | September 08, 2015
The guarantee of anonymity that comes with contacting Crime Stoppers is vitally important to both you and the program.
- It makes it easier for you to come forward, breaking the silence around criminal activity and removing your fear. Anonymity makes the difference.
- You will not be asked to reveal your name or any personal details.
- Your call will not be recorded. Crime Stoppers does not have call display or call trace on any of its telephones and your IP address is not available to us.
- Crime Stoppers have no caller line display, no caller ID and have never traced a call.
- Online reports and text are given the same levels of anonymity as phone calls.
- We create a report from the information you give us and our specially trained call agents will check that this report contains no information that might identify you, e.g. if the call is about your neighbor, we won't mention this.
- Our call agents do not make a note of gender, accents, apparent age or ethnicity of any caller and cannot pass that detail to law enforcement. Even if you give personal details, those will not be passed on.
Crime Stoppers can offer anonymity to its callers because of a legal rule of evidence, which says police do not have to reveal information which might identify a person who supplies them with information concerning criminal activity. In February of 1997 the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously decided that callers to Crime Stoppers programs were entitled to the protection of this privilege. In a typical case which started from a Crime Stoppers tip, the identity of the informer is unknown to both the Crime Stoppers Coordinator who took the call or on line tip and the case investigator. The Supreme Court went on to confirm that the privilege is so broad in scope it prevents disclosure not only of the name of the informer
(even if it were it to be known) but also of any information which might implicitly reveal his or her identity. This is the premise behind the claim that "Crime Stoppers guarantees the tipsters anonymity.”
Crime Stoppers promise of anonymity has never been broken
If the identity of one of our callers was made known it would destroy our credibility and your trust in the Crime Stoppers program and no one would contact us. This is another reason why it is so important to us that we can guarantee your anonymity.
The only way anybody will know you contacted Crime Stoppers is if you tell somebody.
Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers is 100% anonymous and does not subscribe to call display nor are your calls traced or recorded. Web and Text Tips are encrypted. Call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), text TIP206 and your message to CRIMES (274637), or you can submit a tip online at www.saskcrimestoppers.com where you can also view other unsolved crimes.