Kentucky residents are being encouraged by Homeland Security to spy on their neighbors with the introduction of a new IPhone app.
Kentucky isn’t the first place you’d expect to see suspicious behavior, but instances of domestic terrorism such as the Oklahoma City bombing are a reminder that criminal activities aren’t confined to high-profile cities.
With vigilance in mind, the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security (KOHS) recently released an iPhone app that mirrors the “Eyes and Ears on Kentucky” website for reporting “suspicious activity.”
The KOHS worked with a team from Kentucky.gov — Kentucky’s official website — to launch the Eyes and Ears on Kentucky Web portal and app. Funding for the portal was supplied by a $10,000 state homeland security grant; the app was built for free.
Kentucky isn’t the first government to launch an app for reporting suspicious activity. In 2010, Dallas launched a smartphone app called “iWatch Dallas” for citizens to report crimes as well as suspicious behavior that could possibly be linked to terrorism.
Not everyone feels suspicious activity reporting is effective. A 2010 report from the American Civil Liberties Union claims that suspicious activity reporting (SAR) programs can lead to submissions of many common activities, such as a person who looks through binoculars, takes pictures or draws diagrams. “SAR programs increase the probability that innocent people will be stopped by police and have their personal information collected for inclusion in law enforcement and intelligence databases,” the ACLU report said.
Link:
http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/Suspicious-Activity-Reporting-Mobile-in-Kentucky.html