Retailers in Calgary are teaming up with police to try and catch petty thieves.

A secure website for police and loss prevention officers now allows the exchange of information about suspects and trends in criminal activity.

Over 280 businesses have signed up since the site’s launch in Calgary a year ago.

Constable Laura Sampson tells The Calgary Herald they needed a better system of finding culprits than low quality photocopies taken from surveillance videos.

Sampson says she believes the site is already helping to solve more cases than would have been solved before.

The ‘Retailcop’ program was launched in Victoria, B.C. in 2008, and cities in Saskatchewan and Manitoba are also considering adopting it very soon.