A roundup of government-related projects in the works:

• Police may be using GPS data to survey traffic accidents in order to speed up the time it takes to clear the roadway and ease traffic congestion, according to the Highways Agency. The Highways Agency is piloting the technology with Surrey and Warwickshire police forces for the next three months. The Highways Agency would provide the data to the police, which will be downloaded to the hand-held computers they already use.
• DEFRA is organising a voluntary reporting scheme which would pool industry knowledge about nanotechnology. This will help the government build “evidence on any potential risks posed by nanotechnologies, in order to move towards evidence-based appropriate controls,” according to their website. Currently, they are accepting input on how the scheme should work.
• An antisocial behaviour web-database is being piloted by the Charnwood Borough Council and the Leicestershire Police to share information between the many agencies involved in addressing the problem. The system, called Sentinel, was designed by Vantage Technologies, reports Public Technology.
• Citizens will be able to file cases to the European Court of Human Rights online by next year, reports Computing.
• In the US… Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology are studying if RFID (radio frequency identification) can be used by fire fighters to navigate through a smoky room using RFID chips in the walls and hand held devices, reports NetworkWorld.

Perhaps there are a few New Media Award nominations in the group?