In the past three months, an app has been helping tens of thousands of people in Latin America report and learn about crimes occurring in their area.

The app is called CityCop and is available in various countries around the world, including the United States.

"CityCop has garnered some 130,000 users worldwide just three months after its launch," Federico Cella, software developer and head of the project, said in an interview with EFE.

According to Cella, Uruguay, where the app was created, has the largest number of CityCop users.

In second place is Argentina, which according to the app's inventors, has insecurity as one of its biggest problems. Cella said that country has "about 40,000 users."

The country with the third highest number of users is Brazil.

CityCop allows users to send reports and photos to community members about various crimes, including robberies, vandalism, drugs and violence. Users can speak with one another in order to learn more about the reported dangerous activity.

"What is most interesting is that users can establish areas of interest, such as where they live, where they work, where the kids go to school ... and then, even though the app is turned off, an alert is projected if something sinister is going on in those areas," Cella said.

The app also makes patterns more apparent. For example, the app's map can show that "every day at the same time that women driving their cars alone are assaulted at certain stoplights," Cella said. According to the developer, some users have started taking alternate routes around their city thanks to the app.

CityCop providers are now considering publishing monthly infograms detailing recurring crimes and the areas in which they happen.

"Many incidents are not reported using the emergency phone number 911, so that no one ever knows about half of what is going on," Cella said.

CityCop is available for Apple devices via the iTunes Store and for Android devices via Google Play.

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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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