iPhone users who want to avoid the police can now hit up Google Maps before they hit the gas. Google is rolling out the ability to report speed traps, crashes and slowdowns in real time to its Maps iOS app, making the new feature available to about 1 billion existing users worldwide. It was already available on Android phones, as well as on Google's other map app, Waze, which has a fraction of the users.
But US law enforcement has been critical of using this type of technology to report checkpoints to identify those under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and other types of police presence, something they say heightens safety risks on the road.
"Revealing the location of checkpoints puts those drivers, their passengers, and the general public at risk," wrote the New York Police Department in a letter to Google in February, demanding that Waze stop alerting users to those locations.
It's the latest wrinkle in the sometimes rocky relationship between law enforcement and tech companies in recent years. Most giant tech firms tout a mixture of free speech, privacy and ease of use as pillars of their services and devices, values that don't always align with helping the police crack a case.
No comments:
Post a Comment