SMH- you just can't please people

[Gdjjr]

Citizen app scraps plans for on-demand private police force ​

The company's decision to shut down an on-call security service follows more than a week of negative publicity for the popular app, which uses cellphone-location data to alert users of potential safety hazards, emergencies and criminal activity in their area. The app gets its reports from police scanners and 911-call dispatches as well as from users who upload their own videos at the scene of an accident, crime or other emergency
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But as Citizen's popularity has grown, so, too, has its number of critics, who say the app raises privacy issues as well as racial bias. Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the nonprofit privacy watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation, told CBS MoneyWatch that while Citizen promises to protect its users' data, there are other concerns in question.

"The app gives people the power to say who is and who isn't suspicious, and who belongs in their community," said Guariglia. "These apps are a digital superhighway for racial profiling."
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One of Citizen's first investors was Thiel's Founders Fund, which led a seed investment of $1 million into the company in late 2016. Thiel also helped co-found Palantir Technologies, the controversial data-mining company that has faced criticism in recent years over privacy concerns and the vast amounts of data it collects and synthesizes for corporate and government clients. Palantir has worked with U.S. military and law enforcement agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Critics such as Amnesty International say ICE has used Palantir's analytical software to find and arrest the parents of children who have crossed the U.S. border unaccompanied and to conduct workplace raids. Palantir disputes that its software is connected to arrests or deportations.
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In mid-May, the app misidentified a homeless person as the source of a recent wildfire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. Citizen posted pictures of the man, and offered a $30,000 reward to anyone who could provide information leading to his arrest. A few days later, a different man was arrested for the crime. LAPD Lt. Jim Brandon called Citizen's action potentially "disastrous" at a press conference on the incident.


The issues it's being accused of are common occurrences with the thugs of the Police State- good lord- the irony smells to high heaven