Citizens Alert app. disguised as a public service app. will spy on citizens.
Your smart phone can tell you the moment someone comments on your Facebook status. But how about if there's an escaped prisoner on the loose in your neighborhood, or if you're about to drive into a severe storm?
That's the vision of Jim Bender, the CEO of Ping4, a Nahsua-based technology startup, and he's getting high-profile backing from both Gov. John Lynch and Manchester police. http://ping4.com/
Bender introduced the Citizens Alert smart-phone application at a State House press conference Monday attended by the governor and city police officials.
Ping4's app, which is free and is available for Android and iPhone devices, uses a phone's geo-location features to provide users with public safety alerts, which are supplied by participating agencies.
Ping4 App. Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Ping4App
For now, only the Manchester Police Department is using the system, but Bender said Ping4 is running trials with the University of New Hampshire and many other police departments in the state. He said the company is in talks with “hundreds” of agencies in New England and beyond.
“The idea was born in Manchester, but it's going to be global,” Bender said.
“What we decided in going with citizen alerts, from police or a university, metro traffic or the National Weather Service, for example, we can drive downloads locally,” Bender said.
Bender stressed that users would be able to control the kind of alerts they receive by choosing the things they wanted to subscribe to, and he said the company has dealt with privacy concerns.
“This is absolutely not an issue,” he said. “For anyone who downloads the app, nobody knows who you are or where you are. They could subpoena us all day, we don't have it.”
Some privacy advocates have raised concerns about the use of geo-location data by app providers. While such apps are required to get users' consent to use their location, they don't have to disclose how and when location information is used, and some studies have shown that not all apps get user consent.
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20120319/NEWS07/703199951
http://www.policemag.com/Channel/Technology/News/2012/03/19/N-H-Department-Deploys-Notification-Smartphone-App.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+POLICE-All+%28POLICE+Magazine%29
Ping4 press conference with Manchester, NH police dept.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwYh1kVrWlg