Rural Eyewatch, which uses Facebook to publicise wrongdoing, has been operating on a trial basis around NSW since last year with an “extraordinary number of hits”, according to NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Geoff McKechnie.

The top officer was in Albury yesterday for a meeting of the Police Minister’s Rural Crime Advisory Group which tackles problems such as cattle stealing, farm thefts and illegal hunting.

The group’s chairman Geoff Provest, who is the NSW parliamentary secretary for police and emergency services, said Rural Eyewatch was a success because it allowed information about crime to be traded and gave police extra support.

“The big difference between Neighbourhood Watch and Rural Eyewatch is that this gives information live so if somebody 100 kilometres away lost a heap of stock yesterday or lost their tractor they can have a look at the site,” Mr Provest said.

“It actively involves the community in policing rather than in the old days when you would go to a Neighbourhood Watch meeting and the commander would stand up and say these are the crime results, but most of them were four to five weeks old.”

Albury police chief Supt Beth Stirton said she expected Rural Eyewatch would be introduced to her district in the next six months.

“The people in the rural communities will still need to report the specific crime through Crimestoppers or triple-0 or to their local police station but if there is any intelligence or other information that they have they can feed it into that site,” Supt Stirton said.

She said rural crime investigator Sen-Constable Scott Barton would be involved in overseeing the site.

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