About StreetPing

StreetPing is a free, no-name one-tap reporting tool for local nuisance problems.

What the app is for

StreetPing gives residents a quick, no-fuss way to record the nuisance behaviour they see around them — noise, intimidation, dumped rubbish, vehicle misuse, street disturbances and animal problems. You open the app, tap the nuisance type, and your phone's location does the rest. There is no sign-up, no name, no photo, and nothing to type.

The point is not to replace emergency services or council reporting lines. If something needs an urgent response, call the police on 999, or 101 for non-emergencies. StreetPing exists to build a clear, ongoing picture of where and how often these problems happen — the kind of picture that individual phone calls and letters never quite add up to.

How to report

Open StreetPing, tap the category that matches what you can see or hear, then tap the specific type — that's it. Your phone's GPS fills in the location automatically, so a report takes seconds. StreetPing needs your browser's location permission to work: if you decline it, you can't send a report, because every report must come from where you actually are.

How the live map works

After you tap a category and confirm the type, your report appears as a coloured pin on the live map straight away. The pin stays visible for 60 seconds, then disappears automatically.

During those 60 seconds you can also see pins reported by other people nearby — if someone else reports a nuisance while your pin is still showing, you'll see theirs appear too, and they'll see yours. It gives a real-time sense of what is happening around you right now, and nothing more.

When the 60 seconds are up, the pins vanish for everyone. The live map keeps no history — no one browsing it can see what was reported yesterday or last week. The full reports behind the pins are stored securely and, for now, are only ever seen by the site administrator. In future it is proposed to share aggregated data with local councils, as described below — no authority currently has access to it.

One more thing to know: if several people report the same type of nuisance in the same small area within a short space of time, their reports are combined into a single event with a count of how many people reported it — so a spot with five people complaining shows as one strong signal rather than five separate pins.

Fair-use limits

To keep the data honest, a few quiet limits apply. After reporting, the same phone waits two minutes before reporting again from the same spot — reporting from a different location is never restricted. Each phone can send up to ten reports per day. If your tap is ever declined, one of these limits is usually the reason; nearby reports of the same type still count towards the combined event, so nothing is lost.

What you can report

These are the categories and types available in StreetPing. Record the behaviour you observe, not someone’s age, appearance or presence alone. Some types fit more than one category; choose the closest match and report once.

Reports build trend data — they are not monitored for an immediate response. For danger, threats or an active fire, contact local emergency services. Local rules and permitted hours vary.

1. Noise Nuisance

Loud music / Parties: Persistent or late-night loud music, parties or other domestic audio disturbance.
Barking dogs / Animal noise: Continuous barking or other animal disturbance. This is also covered under Animal Nuisance.
DIY / Construction noise: Drilling, hammering or other DIY and construction disturbance outside permitted local hours.
Commercial / Industrial noise: Disruptive deliveries, alarms or machinery from business premises.
Vehicle noise: Revving engines, loud exhausts or car stereos in residential areas.
Shouting or swearing: Loud shouting or swearing that disturbs people nearby.
Fighting: Fighting that causes noise or disturbance. If anyone is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services instead.

2. Intimidation & Harassment

Threatening behaviour: Behaviour that makes someone fear for their safety.
Verbal abuse / Shouting: Direct insults, aggressive language or threats directed at another person.
Hate-motivated incidents: Abuse targeting race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender identity.
Neighbour disputes: Targeted local feuds or boundary and parking disputes that escalate into harassment or intimidation — not routine disagreements.
Stalking / Following: Persistent, unwanted following, tracking or loitering near a person. Contact local police for help; StreetPing does not trigger a response.
Aggressive begging: Coercive or threatening demands for money in public spaces; also covered under Intimidation & Harassment.
Bullying: Intimidating or harassing behaviour towards another person.
Targeting vulnerable people: Harassment or intimidation directed at people who may be especially vulnerable.
Groups of young people: Nuisance or intimidating behaviour involving a group of young people — not simply gathering together.
Balaclava gangs: Nuisance, threatening or intimidating behaviour involving a group wearing face coverings — not face coverings alone.

3. Environmental Damage

Fly-tipping / Illegal dumping: Waste or furniture abandoned illegally on land or in public spaces.
Littering / Drug paraphernalia: Discarded household rubbish, canisters or needles. Do not touch needles or hazardous waste.
Vandalism / Property damage: Smashed windows, broken street furniture or deliberate destruction of property.
Graffiti / Tagging: Unauthorised writing or painting on public or private surfaces.
Arson / Deliberate fires: Deliberate fires or burning hazardous materials. For an active fire or immediate danger, contact local emergency services first.

4. Vehicle Misuse

Inconsiderate parking / Blocking access: Vehicles obstructing driveways, pavements or access routes.
Abandoned vehicles: Vehicles that appear abandoned on public roads; being unfamiliar, damaged or untaxed alone does not establish abandonment.
Nuisance driving / Riding: Unsafe or disruptive use of cars, e-scooters or off-road bikes on footpaths or residential estates.
Car meets / Cruising: Group street racing, drifting, repeated cruising or disruptive engine revving in car parks.
Vehicle repairs: Commercial garage activity on a residential street that causes nuisance — not ordinary personal vehicle maintenance.
Car racing: Street racing that endangers or disturbs people nearby.
Inconsiderate driving: Driving that causes nuisance or puts others at risk.
Electric scooters: Nuisance or unsafe use of electric scooters — not their presence alone.
Electric bikes: Nuisance or unsafe use of electric bikes — not their presence alone.
Quad bikes: Nuisance or unsafe use of quad bikes.

5. Public Disturbance

Rowdy / Inconsiderate behaviour: Groups blocking paths, shouting or causing distress in public — not simply gathering together.
Street drinking / Public intoxication: Drunken behaviour causing alarm or leaving someone vulnerable.
Open drug use / Dealing: Visible substance use or suspected dealing in public spaces, including stairwells and parks — not simply assembling there.
Misuse of fireworks: Fireworks set off in public streets or outside locally permitted hours.
Trespassing: Unauthorised access to private land, building roofs or abandoned sites.
Aggressive begging: Coercive or threatening demands for money in public spaces; also covered under Intimidation & Harassment.
Gangs of people: Groups behaving disruptively or intimidating others — not simply gathering together.
Balaclava gangs: Nuisance, threatening or intimidating behaviour involving a group wearing face coverings — not face coverings alone.

6. Animal Nuisance

Dog fouling: Animal waste left uncleaned in public spaces or shared communal areas.
Dangerous / Uncontrolled dogs: Dogs out of control, rushing at people, causing fear or attacking other pets — not simply being off-leash.
Stray / Abandoned animals: Domestic pets or livestock roaming without an owner present or appearing abandoned.
Animal hoarding / Welfare: Large numbers of animals affecting local hygiene or causing persistent odour. Contact the relevant local animal welfare service if an animal needs help.
Uncontrolled animals: Animals out of control that cause nuisance or put others at risk.
Persistent dog barking: Repeated or continuous barking that disturbs people nearby; also listed under Noise Nuisance.

What a report records

Every report stores just five things:

The nuisance category and type you tapped (for example, Noise Nuisance → Loud music / Parties).
The GPS coordinates of where you were standing when you reported.
A nearby street name, postcode and town, worked out automatically from those coordinates.
The date and time of your tap.
A randomly generated device identifier to prevent duplicate and spam reports. It is not linked to a reporting account, but can link submissions from the same browser and is treated as potentially personal data.

We do not collect your name, email address, phone number or photographs, and we never ask you to create an account. Reports carry only the time you tapped — we don't ask when the incident happened. Nearby reports of the same type are grouped into one event with a count of how many people confirmed it, so the data shows patterns rather than duplicate entries.

Reports do not accept descriptions of individual people or vehicle registration numbers. There is no user-to-user messaging or continuous background location tracking. Even without names, precise locations, timestamps and device identifiers may identify someone when combined with other information, so reports are not necessarily anonymous in law.

How the data is stored

Reports are stored securely in the StreetPing database. Only the site administrator can view individual reports. The public map shows nothing more than recent pins for sixty seconds — no history, no street or postcode labels and no device identifiers. A visible location pin can nevertheless reveal information about a location.

The revised proposed retention schedule is precise GPS and exact timestamps for up to 12 months, followed by regional aggregate trend statistics until five years from collection, then deletion. This replaces the earlier ten-year policy, but the new deletion and conversion process has not yet been confirmed as implemented. Removing GPS alone does not anonymise records; other identifying details and small counts also need assessment. See the privacy notice for the full schedule and limitations.

How the data is intended to be used

The purpose of StreetPing is to turn scattered everyday complaints into evidence a council can act on. At the moment, no council, police force or other authority has been approached or given access to the data — reports are held by StreetPing and seen only by the site administrator. Once enough reports have built up in an area, it is proposed that the data will be offered to local authorities in a read-only, aggregated form:

Heatmaps of the areas where nuisance reports concentrate, week by week.
Breakdowns by town, postcode and street, so officers could see exactly which locations are recurring problems.
Trends by category — for example, whether noise complaints in one neighbourhood have risen over recent months.

Councils would use this to monitor their communities and decide where to allocate resources — extra patrols, environmental health visits, clean-ups, CCTV, lighting, or targeted community programmes. In short: your one-tap report is intended to help the people responsible for your area see the problem clearly and act where it matters most.

Any future sharing is intended to focus on aggregated patterns, not individual reporting histories. Aggregation alone does not guarantee anonymity: precise areas and small counts can still identify people. Legal and privacy assessments must be completed before new sharing begins, and this page and the privacy notice updated to explain the arrangements.

What you agree to when you report

By submitting a report, you confirm that what you are reporting is accurate to the best of your knowledge. A few points that go with that:

Accuracy: record what you actually observed. Reports are combined into area data, so an inaccurate report affects the picture for everyone in your neighbourhood.
No-name reporting: no contact details are collected in the reporting form, so officers cannot follow up with you personally or take a statement. If you want to make a named report that police or your council can act on directly, call 101 or use your council's own reporting line.
GDPR & data sharing: reports are treated as potentially personal data. The intended lawful basis for ordinary processing is legitimate interests under Article 6(1)(f) UK GDPR, subject to the required assessments. Future sharing with councils, police or housing providers is a proposal only. No such sharing takes place yet. A formal impact assessment and full legal compliance have not been confirmed; allegations about identifiable people need additional legal consideration.
Honest reporting: knowingly false or repeated mischievous reports may result in a device being blocked from using the app.

Keep StreetPing on your phone

StreetPing works in your browser — there's nothing to download. For one-tap access, add it to your home screen: on iPhone, open the site in Safari, tap Share, then "Add to Home Screen"; on Android, open it in Chrome, tap the menu, then "Add to Home screen". It will then open like an app, straight to the reporting screen.

Who runs StreetPing

StreetPing is owned and operated by AuBea Data Tech Limited, registered in England and Wales under company number 17553247. Registered office: 22 Regent Street, Nottingham, NG1 5BQ.

Questions about the app or the data it holds? Email contact@streetping.co.uk.

What the data is not

StreetPing data is crowdsourced community observation, not an official crime record. It indicates local concerns and trends; it is not proof of an offence and should not be relied on as evidence in legal or formal proceedings. For the full detail, see our privacy & data disclaimer.

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