Online Watch Link

Online Watch Link (OWL) is a commercial web application to manage watch schemes such as Neighbourhood Watch (United Kingdom) and Business Watch and to act as a communications platform to allow watch coordinators and the police to send out messages and high priority alerts to members. Other watch schemes are supported such as Pub Watch, School Watch, Farm Watch and Shop Watch for example.

OWL is used by Hertfordshire Constabulary,[1] Staffordshire Police, West Yorkshire Police, the Metropolitan Police Service and North Wales. OWL was originally conceived and prototyped in early 2004. It was redeveloped as a scalable application and launched in June 2006 as a pilot in Welwyn Hatfield. By 2007 it was rolled out across all districts in Hertfordshire. It was recognised by the Government in January 2009 by awarding it an e-Government National Award[2] for innovation and in June 2013 was given a Big Society Award by Prime Minister David Cameron for crime reduction and empowering communities. By mid 2016, 25% of all homes in Hertfordshire had individually registered on OWL.