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Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops

theatlantic.com

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Re: Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops

#21

Post by Joakal »

Natsu wrote: post #20
Joakal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also strip personally identifying information for immediate anonymity. A phone serial could be embedded or at least a phone make (mine does phone make. Flickr enjoys this btw). Combine that with who owns the phone serial or used phone make in the area (apparently some phones broadcast such information) and the person can be identified.

> Also strip personally identifying information for immediate anonymity. I question just how anonymous a recording of your interaction with the police can be made. Surely the officers in question will recognize recordings of themselves and have records of just who all they pulled over that day?

It's more about capturing something that someone does not want to be seen and later traceable back to you because you didn't know about your phone embedding data into pictures.

Say for example, you caught me killing a puppy with your camera phone. I'm your neighbour so you post the picture online with a hint to location via an anonymous account through many proxies. There's newspaper frontpage outrage and I'm outraged. I investigate and look at the picture file. Lo and behold, I recognise the camera make as yours and know who it is. So it's not only police that you want to protect yourself from.

Disclaimer: I like puppies though :(

Re: Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops

#22

Post by Joakal »

Mizza wrote: post #18

I wrote these! Got any questions?

It seems overly anti-police just starting with the headline and not quite about how the apps are giving journalistic abilities to people.

Just my opinion. I don't dislike/avoid the police here (Australian).

Re: Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops

#23

Post by Mizza »

Joakal wrote: post #22
Mizza wrote: post #18

I wrote these! Got any questions?

It seems overly anti-police just starting with the headline and not quite about how the apps are giving journalistic abilities to people. Just my opinion. I don't dislike/avoid the police here (Australian).

Well, I wrote the software, not the article. It's a catchy headline sure, and the apps are called Cop Recorder, which a lot of people see as anti-police. But, there are lots of cops who use the software too.

We are not an anti-police project, we are a pro-data project! There are good police and bad police, and we publish recordings of both.

Re: Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops

#24

Post by fleitz »

Joakal wrote: post #22
Mizza wrote: post #18

I wrote these! Got any questions?

It seems overly anti-police just starting with the headline and not quite about how the apps are giving journalistic abilities to people. Just my opinion. I don't dislike/avoid the police here (Australian).

To paraphrase the police, if police officers are doing their job with in the letter of the law then they have nothing to worry about being recorded.

I'm not sure why the framing is 'spying' on the police, as the police should welcome such monitoring to ensure that all officers are performing their public duties to the public, tools like these are extremely helpful in weeding out the 'bad apples' and I fail to understand how recording a public police force in public performing their public duties could be considered spying.

Surely, the police would welcome evidence of the overwhelmingly positive effect they have on society being made more public. The police know the value that CCTV can bring to the public, these tools help the police realize the benefits of constant recording of their own members and should welcome efforts to verify that their records match 3rd party records so they can weed out those who would seek to distort the record. It's well known that the police sometimes have problems with evidence going missing, these tools help restore the evidence that understandably goes missing during an investigation.

Tools like these are a great way for citizens to help the police do their job, and aid the police in collecting evidence that might be cost prohibitive in the current economic climate. It would be great if the police could distribute these tools from their websites and make them more available, perhaps on the back of their business cards they could make this information available.

The Vancouver angle is especially interesting, as in the heat of the moment RCMP members in the Vancouver area often remember a different version of events than was recorded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dzieka%C5%84ski_Taser_in... http://www.bcpolicecomplaints.org/monty_robinson.html

"Robinson, in a bid to get his driver’s licence returned, told a B.C. Supreme Court that he had two stiff drinks at home before returning to the scene of the accident, which caused him to fail a breathalyzer."

Re: Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops

#25

Post by baconner »

I disagree with the headline. It is not "spying" to record the police in public any more than it is spying for them to record you with a dashboard camera. Both recordings should serve the same purpose - to create a record of events that can be used to ensure the law is upheld. I don't see how any honest law enforcement professional could disagree with this.

Re: Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops

#27

Post by andrewcooke »

Mizza wrote: post #23
Joakal wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems overly anti-police just starting with the headline and not quite about how the apps are giving journalistic abilities to people. Just my opinion. I don't dislike/avoid the police here (Australian).

Well, I wrote the software, not the article. It's a catchy headline sure, and the apps are called Cop Recorder, which a lot of people see as anti-police. But, there are lots of cops who use the software too. We are not an anti-police project, we are a pro-data project! There are good police and bad police, and we publish recordings of both.

ok, so that concerns me, because i am not convinced that "more data" is a good thing. more surveillance in general is, it seems to me, going to help those with power rather than those without - they have more resources, for example.

what i thought was good about your app, from this article, was that it was intended for the underdog - that something about the process to combine data, say, was intended to provide a counterbalance to the abuse of police power.

but now you're saying you're neutral about it. that you're as happy for it to be used by the police against others, as for others to use it against the police. doesn't that mean that you're likely making things worse?

and what about other morally questionable areas? mob-justice, for example. what are you going to do if a bunch of people start pooling observations of someone they are calling, say, a paedophile, when there's no conviction against them? or gays? or people of one race or another, asserting that they commit more crime...?

just arguing that "more data is good" seems horribly naive. data a tool that can be abused in many ways. if you're choosing how to shape that force, and choosing well, great, but if you're going to ignore the moral responsibility that comes with the data, what makes you think you are helping?

Re: Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops

#29

Post by karzeem »

snprbob86 wrote: post #19
jellicle wrote: post #9

For full function, the ideal citizen filming app should: -- record audio and video -- upload it on-the-fly (as it is being recorded) automatically -- keep recording when the phone is locked or otherwise off/inaccessible to others, as it may be taken away from you Openwatch meets 1 of those requirements. Still waiting for something that meets all 3...

http://qik.com/ does at least the first two. Not sure about the 3rd.

It stops recording when the phone is locked. But I'd imagine that as long as it's recording, the phone wouldn't go into lock mode unless you specifically told it to. The good news is that even if someone takes your phone and deletes the video, you can email Qik to recover whatever portion of the video was uploaded to their servers before the deletion.

Re: Policing the Police: The Apps That Let You Spy on the Cops

#30

Post by ldar15 »

ajays wrote: post #3

The article mentions 2 apps, but I'm sure these are not the only ones. It would be nice to know about others too. One note of caution, though: some states are 2-party consent states, which means, both parties have to consent to an audio recording. If you happen to be in one of those states, and the cops find out that you've been recording them, you can be in deep trouble. On the other hand, sometimes just recording t…

"some states are 2-party consent states, which means, both parties have to consent to an audio recording."

IANAL, but I believe that there is no state where this applies to public recording. The issue is "expectation of privacy". http://www.rcfp.org/taping/consent.html

In the rochester case, the public servant informed Ms Good that they did not feel safe, and then used the "refusal to obey a police instruction" as the crime. However, citizens are only required to obey lawful instructions. I do not believe that the instruction was lawful.

Until our public servants in law enforcement are educated on the matter of law, a citizen will be taking a risk in exercising their rights. I believe that it is our duty to do so.

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