A safety map is only as trustworthy as the data underneath it. So here is exactly where ours comes from, how precise it is, and — just as importantly — what it cannot tell you.
The source
The official layer of our map comes from data.police.uk, the open data service published by the UK police. It carries individual crime and anti-social behaviour records with street-level location information, along with the police and court outcomes attached to them.
Forty-three police forces across England, Wales and Northern Ireland feed into it. The data is refreshed monthly and published under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which is what makes it legal for anyone — us included — to build on.
What gets recorded
Every record falls into one of fourteen categories:
- Anti-social behaviour
- Bicycle theft
- Burglary
- Criminal damage and arson
- Drugs
- Other theft
- Possession of weapons
- Public order
- Robbery
- Shoplifting
- Theft from the person
- Vehicle crime
- Violence and sexual offences
- Other crime
For someone walking home, a handful of these carry most of the weight — robbery, theft from the person, public order, and violence and sexual offences. A cluster of shoplifting reports outside a supermarket tells you something about the shop, not about your walk. This is why we show you the category behind every marker instead of collapsing everything into a single risk score.
The part most maps do not explain: a pin is not an address
Street-level crime locations are deliberately imprecise, and this is the single most misunderstood thing about UK crime data.
Rather than publishing the exact spot, the police service snaps each crime to the nearest point on a master list of more than 751,000 anchor points — street centres, parks, shopping areas, transport hubs. Every one of those points is chosen so that it covers at least eight postal addresses.
This means a marker on any UK crime map — ours or anyone else’s — can never point at a particular house, and was never meant to. It tells you roughly where, not precisely where. That is a privacy protection, and it is a good one.
Accuracy varies by force
The police service publishes its own accuracy figures, and they are worth knowing. The share of records that are geocoded correctly ranges from roughly 60% to 97% depending on the force. Matching crimes to their eventual court results is more variable still.
So the honest summary is: this data is very good at showing you patterns across an area over time, and much weaker as a statement about any single incident at any single point. We build the map to suit what the data is actually good at.
What it cannot tell you
- It cannot tell you about unreported crime. A great deal of crime never reaches the police, and what never gets reported never appears on any map.
- It is not real-time. The feed updates monthly, so the freshest official data is typically several weeks old. Community reports fill some of that gap, which is why we carry both.
- It cannot tell you whether a street is safe right now. It describes what has been reported before, which is a guide to risk, not a forecast.
Data: data.police.uk about page and changelog, police.uk neighbourhood pages · latest month August 2026 · Updated 19 October 2026
Why is the crime map one to two months behind?
The crime map is one to two months behind because police forces upload each month’s records to data.police.uk only after the month has ended, as a snapshot, and the whole set is published once a month. On 19 October 2026 the newest month on our crime map is August 2026, which ended seven weeks earlier.
Our own release log shows how the gap moves. On 29 September 2026 the newest month was still July 2026; by 2 October 2026 August 2026 had arrived. So a month’s records appeared roughly four to five weeks after it ended, and they stay the newest month until the next release, by which time they are close to two months old. That is the range you should expect at any moment.
Rule of thumb: the latest month on any UK crime map built on police data is usually the month before last. Nothing from the last few weeks is on it.
Why are some areas further behind than others?
Because each force uploads its own data, and some miss a month or upload late. The data.police.uk changelog for August 2026 lists no crime data from British Transport Police, Gloucestershire Constabulary or Greater Manchester Police, and police.uk neighbourhood pages do not all end in the same month.
| Area (checked 16–19 October 2026) | Newest month available | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Most of England, Wales and Northern Ireland | August 2026 | The normal one-to-two-month gap. |
| Railway stations (British Transport Police) | February 2025 | The changelog notes no British Transport Police crime data for every month from March 2025 to August 2026, so crime at railway stations has been missing for 18 months. |
| Gloucestershire | January 2026 | The changelog says crime data was not provided for every month from February to August 2026, with a refresh promised “as soon as possible”. |
| Greater Manchester | None | Greater Manchester Police is not supplying street-level crime data; see our Manchester crime map guide. |
| Walton, Liverpool (police.uk neighbourhood page) | June 2026 | An individual neighbourhood page can end two months before the rest of its force. |
| Leeds East and Leeds West (police.uk) | June 2026 | Leeds City and Leeds North East end in August 2026, so compare the same months. |
Sources: data.police.uk changelog (August 2026 and earlier entries) and police.uk neighbourhood pages, checked 16–19 October 2026. The British Transport Police and Gloucestershire rows are our reading of the month-by-month changelog notes (“Crime data not provided”).
Can old months change after they are published?
Yes. When a force finds an error, data.police.uk asks it to re-upload and overwrite the month, and most fixes appear in the next monthly release, its about page says. Forces that missed months, such as Gloucestershire, are expected to send a refresh later. A count you read today for an older month can therefore change slightly in a later release.
What does the delay mean when you check a street?
- Use 12 months, not one. Our postcode checker shows a year of data, which smooths out a late or missing month.
- Compare the same months. If one area ends in June and another in August, compare June with June.
- Remember the gaps. Around a mainline station, months without British Transport Police data will look quieter than they were.
- Recent events are not there yet. Something that happened last week will not appear for at least a month.
An update to the figures above, checked on data.police.uk on 19 October 2026: the street-level master list now holds 679,089 street map points, each covering at least eight postal addresses or none, and the data comes from the 43 geographic forces of England and Wales plus British Transport Police and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Scotland is not included. For how to read the dots, see our guide to the police crime map.
Safety App UK shows this police data on a live map, plans safer walking routes and sends SOS to your trusted circle. It is an independent app, not a police service: in an emergency call 999.
Crime data delay: FAQ
How often is UK police crime data updated?
Monthly. Forces upload each month after it ends and data.police.uk publishes the new month once a month, so on 19 October 2026 the newest month is August 2026.
Why can’t I see crime from last week?
Because police street-level data is published about a month after each month ends. Crime from the last few weeks will appear in a later release, not before.
Why does my area show no crime for recent months?
Either the force has not supplied those months (in August 2026: British Transport Police, Gloucestershire and Greater Manchester), or the neighbourhood page ends earlier than the rest. Check the newest month shown before comparing.
How we use it
We mark incidents, and only incidents. We do not mark areas as dangerous on the basis of who lives in them, we do not blend demographic data into a risk score, and we do not intend to. Every marker traces back to something that was reported.
If the data cannot support a claim, we would rather not make the claim.