New App Makes It Simple for Civilians to Record Police Encounters
Being pulled over or stopped on the street by police? A new Siri Shortcuts app for iPhone iOS 12 lets users record their experience with police.
Called Police, the Siri Shortcuts app acts like a bodycam. “Once the shortcut is installed and configured, you just have to say, for example, ‘Hey Siri, I’m getting pulled over.’ Then the program pauses music you may be playing, turns down the brightness on the iPhone, and turns on ‘do not disturb’ mode,” businessinsider.com reports.
It uses the phone’s front-facing camera to discretely video record one’s interactions with the cops and “texts a predetermined contact that you’ve been pulled over,” according to businessinsider.com. It “also sends a video of the encounter to your contact,” by text, and uploads it to Dropbox.
For any police encounters that turn ugly — such as a shooting, an altercation or verbal abuse — the app, developed by Reddit user Robert Petersen, could prove helpful.
“I have noticed in reading news articles and seeing reports on TV that in many cases you end up with police saying one thing happened and the citizen being pulled over saying another,” Petersen told USA Today. “And how do you determine truth? Sometimes the police have body cams, sometimes not, and even when they do, it’s not always released in a timely manner.”
The app was created using Shortcuts, a platform that allows the user to edit it for various situations. “The entire recipe for the Police shortcut can be accessed in the Shortcuts app,” businessinsider.com says.
Source: businessinsider.com, usatoday.com
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