• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Articles
  • News
  • Events
  • Advertize
  • Jobs
  • Courses
  • Contact
  • (0)
  • LoginRegister
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • RSS
      Articles
      News
      Events
      Job Posts
    • Twitter
Datafloq

Datafloq

Data and Technology Insights

  • Categories
    • Big Data
    • Blockchain
    • Cloud
    • Internet Of Things
    • Metaverse
    • Robotics
    • Cybersecurity
    • Startups
    • Strategy
    • Technical
  • Big Data
  • Blockchain
  • Cloud
  • Metaverse
  • Internet Of Things
  • Robotics
  • Cybersecurity
  • Startups
  • Strategy
  • Technical

Crime app Citizen rolls out fee-based tool for U.S. users to contact safety agents

Reuters / 2 min read.
August 3, 2021
floq.to/FXNqx

By Elizabeth Culliford

(Reuters) – U.S. crime alert app Citizen is launching its first paid feature, offering subscribers access to a live safety agent when they are in “stressful or uncertain situations”.

Citizen uses crowdsourced content and police scanner traffic to notify users in the United States of local incidents. It has been criticized for promoting vigilantism, particularly after it posted a $30,000 reward to find a man wrongly suspected of arson in May.

The new feature, called Protect, can monitor a subscriber’s location if they feel unsafe or connect them through video or text with a Citizen employee who can escalate calls to 911 or first responders.

They can also notify a person’s emergency contacts or kick off a “public incident,” where an alert for help is sent to other Citizen users in the vicinity.

The app, originally launched in 2016 under the name Vigilante, has in recent months been expanding its remit. Protect, which will cost $19.99 a month, has been in testing with nearly 100,000 users but is now available for the app’s almost 8 million users.

Citizen recently caused controversy over what it said was an internal test for a service that would deploy private contractors as rapid-response security personnel to users in Los Angeles. A company spokeswoman said this pilot was not connected to the Protect feature and it has no plans to create its own security force.

Citizen said subscribers can activate Protect by pressing a “get agent” button, shaking their phone or via “distress detection” mode – which uses technology to monitor their phone’s audio to identify sounds like a scream.

It declined to comment on the number of Protect Agents hired.

Neighborhood safety apps like Citizen, as well as hyper-local site Nextdoor, which racked up users during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Amazon Ring’s Neighbors community app have come under scrutiny over concerns of surveillance and racial profiling, especially after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer. nL2N2NX1SC]

Citizen said in a statement that its Protect Agents, who include former law enforcement officers and medical responders, take a four-week certification course and receive training on bias prevention, anti-racism awareness and mental illness.

A spokeswoman said Protect was not aiming to replace 911 but could help reduce the number of non-emergency calls.

“Citizen has been a one-way system to date. We provide real-time situational awareness and our users can decide what to do with it,” Citizen CEO Andrew Frame said in a statement. “Starting today, Citizen is now a two-way system where users can request help from Citizen.”

Citizen has raised more than $130 million in funding from venture capital firms like Greycroft and Sequoia Capital, according to start-up tracker site Crunchbase.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford; editing by Richard Pullin and Angus MacSwan)

Categories: News
Tags: Amazon, BI, hbase, security, technology

About Reuters

Primary Sidebar

E-mail Newsletter

Sign up to receive email updates daily and to hear what's going on with us!

Publish
AN Article
Submit
a press release
List
AN Event
Create
A Job Post

Jobs

  • Software Engineer | South Yorkshire, GB - February 07, 2023
  • Software Engineer with C# .net Investment House | London, GB - February 07, 2023
  • Senior Java Developer | London, GB - February 07, 2023
  • Software Engineer – Growing Digital Media Company | London, GB - February 07, 2023
  • LBG Returners – Senior Data Analyst | Chester Moor, GB - February 07, 2023
More Jobs

Tags

AI Amazon analysis analytics application Artificial Intelligence BI Big Data business China Cloud Companies company crypto customers Data design development digital engineer engineering environment experience future Google+ government Group health information learning machine learning mobile news public research security services share skills social social media software solutions strategy technology

News

  • Britain, U.S. to work together on AI safety, says Sunak
  • Mercedes-Benz beats Tesla for California’s approval of automated driving tech
  • Wingtech-owned Nexperia denied German subsidy
  • AI startup Cohere raises funds from Nvidia, valued at $2.2 billion
  • US and UK back new ‘Atlantic Declaration’ for economic cooperation
More News

Related Online Courses

  • Oracle Cloud Data Management Foundations Workshop
  • Data Science at Scale
  • Statistics with Python
More courses

Footer


Datafloq is the one-stop source for big data, blockchain and artificial intelligence. We offer information, insights and opportunities to drive innovation with emerging technologies.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Recent

  • 5 Reasons Why Modern Data Integration Gives You a Competitive Advantage
  • 5 Most Common Database Structures for Small Businesses
  • 6 Ways to Reduce IT Costs Through Observability
  • How is Big Data Analytics Used in Business? These 5 Use Cases Share Valuable Insights
  • How Realistic Are Self-Driving Cars?

Search

Tags

AI Amazon analysis analytics application Artificial Intelligence BI Big Data business China Cloud Companies company crypto customers Data design development digital engineer engineering environment experience future Google+ government Group health information learning machine learning mobile news public research security services share skills social social media software solutions strategy technology

Copyright © 2023 Datafloq
HTML Sitemap| Privacy| Terms| Cookies

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • WhatsApp

In order to optimize the website and to continuously improve Datafloq, we use cookies. For more information click here.

settings

Dear visitor,
Thank you for visiting Datafloq. If you find our content interesting, please subscribe to our weekly newsletter:

Did you know that you can publish job posts for free on Datafloq? You can start immediately and find the best candidates for free! Click here to get started.

Not Now Subscribe

Thanks for visiting Datafloq
If you enjoyed our content on emerging technologies, why not subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive the latest news straight into your mailbox?

Subscribe

No thanks

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

Marketing cookies

This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!