NYC 911 to Accept Cellphone Pics and Video

SpaceAdmiral writes "New York City is developing a plan to allow images to be sent to 911 emergency operators from cellphones. This will likely give emergency operators better information to pass along to responders. They're also planning on implementing a program of street-corner video cameras, as seen in the city of London. According to John A. Feinblatt, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's criminal justice coordinator: 'The more information that the police have and the more quickly that they get it, the more likely that they are going to fight a crime.'" How practical do you think it is to expand this sort of project to cities across the country? Moreover, is it worth the expense?

Comments

Moo

[Chacham]

Note that Indiana is doing it first:

Actually, the state of Indiana has already begun a plan to revamp its 911 networks and allow citizens to transmit images wirelessly to emergency responders.

There is a much better article on News.com.com: New York to use cell phone photographers to help fight crime

The service is to be implemented by PowerPhone which has a Press Release here: Technology delivers cell phone photos to 9-1-1 operators

Re:Moo

[ptbarnett]

The service is to be implemented by PowerPhone which has a Press Release here: Technology delivers cell phone photos to 9-1-1 operators

I just read the article, which says:

PowerPhone's ILM system works like this: a citizen calls from his cell phone to report an emergency or suspicious activity-for example, a suspicious person dumping chemicals in a subway station. The caller dials 9-1-1 to report the sighting and says he can send a picture of the man to help identify him. The call handler sends a text message to the caller's cell phone requesting the photo. The caller then replies to this message with the photo attached. PowerPhone's ILM system stores the photo in an incident record for easy reference. The image can be forwarded to responders who are on their way to the scene.

By following this process, the 9-1-1 center ensures that photos are linked with the appropriate records of the citizen's 9-1-1 call. Even more important, this process discourages citizens from randomly sending photos into the 9-1-1 center-an arrangement that can lead to pranks and other abuses of the system.

Did they bother to check to test how many cell phones can actually do this? I just tried it with my Motorola Razr, and I don't have the ability to attach a photo to a reply.

Re:In answer to your question ...

[chicagotypewriter]

As a followup to my vague, sourceless post, this article details some of the stats on Chicago's camera network, for those interested in what the cameras are about.