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Hello, cellphone vigilantism!
As part of his State of the City address, Mayor Bloomberg announced some new technology for New Yorkers.
This year, we'll begin a revolutionary innovation in crime-fighting: Equipping "911" call centers to receive digital images and videos New Yorkers send from cell phones and computers something no other city in the world is doing.City Hall should totally start its own Flickr group - as should the NYPD! Sadly, the Mayor did not divulge the email address or number you will be able to send images or video to - maybe he do that in an extra special message via YouTube.If you see a crime in progress or a dangerous building condition you'll be able to transmit images to 911, or online to NYC.GOV. And we'll start extending the same technology to 311 to allow New Yorkers to step forward and document non-emergency quality of life concerns holding City agencies accountable for correcting them quickly and efficiently.
The mayor's "criminal justice coordinator" John Feinblatt told the Times, "This is absolutely brand new for law enforcement, and it’s absolutely new for a call center like 311, but by no means is it new technology. So what we’re going to do is take applications that already exist in the industry and adapt them to 911 and 311." Feinblatt and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly both pointed to the incident where Thao Nguyen took a cellphone picture of Dan Hoyt pleasuring himself on a subway, posted it on the Internet, all leading to Hoyt's arrest (this wasn't his first offense, either!). Others have used cellphones to try to nab wrongdoers as well. Civil rights attorney Norman Siegel tells the Post he thinks would be "no civil liberties objections" if the photographs are of "criminal behavior."
And New Yorkers would be able to log quality of life issues the same way to 311. How very reminiscent of Andrew Rasiej's "We Fix NYC" pothole tracking! But we don't recommend you email 311 every time when you see that poop on the street because that'll get old.
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alright... i laughed out loud at the "maybe he do that." sorry, jen... that one was just too funny.
can I get an rss feed of their emails? that would be fun.
The last thing that should happen is that the NYPD should be allowed to get a Flickr group - society does not need a bunch of people reporting each other to the police. We already have enough problems with NYPD spying and making lists of "malcontents" and "evil doors" lets not help them with this.
"Oh, but it will only be used to fight bad people"
Famous last words.
I cant wait for someone to take a picture of their balls, MMS it to 911, get arrested for indecent exposure, and then read about it on gothamist.
Can't wait to take endless photos of the rude hipsters pissing in the neighborhood when they go to Studio B. that club better start trying to police their patrons or they're going to find themselves as the focus of a barrage of calls to 311 with quality of life complaints.
Nonetheless, it is a sad reflection on the systems - that one would need pictures to get action.
That is like saying, that for years, the phone call-reports were not adequate
Could an altercation develop between someone being caught and objecting to having a photo or video taken - or even lawsuits.
For decades there have been systems in place allowing free calls to 911 even from pay phones.
Did people just not want to be bothered - or were the responses just not adequate?
will - if nypd are not good users of this technology, what is ? show us how it should be done
i created this facility with instructions on how to mms to flickr which my employers offer for free to basic account holders - it will also happily mms to email and can also be tweaked to mms to wordpress and lots more blogging systems
is law enforcement the only use we can come up with for this technology ? get creative and demonstrate what else the technology can do. technology can be used to give power away as easily as it can be used to take responsibility.
as a developer i welcome and strongly encourage debate on the ethics of software, particularly in this instance