NYPD SBA Prez: Waze App a Threat
A New York City police union has written a letter of protest to Google, complaining about a feature in the Waze traffic app, which allows users to pinpoint the locations of police officers.
Waze, which Google purchased for $966 million in 2013, is a combination of GPS navigation and social networking. Fifty million users in 200 countries turn to the free service for real-time traffic guidance and warnings about nearby congestion, car accidents, speed traps or traffic cameras, construction zones, potholes, stalled vehicles, or unsafe weather conditions.
“Get alerted before you approach police, accidents, road hazards or traffic jams, all shared by other drivers in real-time,”the Waze website says as it encourages users to download the app. “It’s like a personal heads-up from a few million of your friends on the road.”
Waze users mark police presence on maps without much distinction other than “visible” or “hidden.” Users see a police icon, but it’s not immediately clear whether police are there for a speed trap, a sobriety check or a lunch break. The police generally are operating in public spaces.
But Sergeants’ Benevolent Association President Edward Mullins said in the letter that allowing users to “get alerts before they approach police” could put police officers at risk. He pointed in particular to the ambush and assassination of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn this past December as the foremost example of such risks.
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