NYC Opens 911 Hotline To Pictures, Video

Anti-Globalism brings news that New York City has set up a system to accept pictures and videos for their 911 and non-emergency hotlines. The files can come from cell phones, computers, and PDAs. Quoting: "Tipsters in New York City can now send photos and video ... to report crimes and quality-of-life issues such as potholes, officials announced Tuesday. Depending on the case, the images may be shared widely with the public, with police officers on patrol, individual detectives or other law enforcement agencies, according to city officials. The images may also be used to help in assessing and responding to emergencies."

Comments

Re:911?

[Anonymous Coward]

It might make sense for non-emergency lines, but opening up the 911 seems to be asking for trouble with deluge of trivial, non-emergency data.

I doubt that. I think that most of the useless data to 911 comes from prank calls from phone booths and such. I think this will be a lot smaller problem.

And 911 might benefit a lot from extra data sometimes. Like getting image of a house burning and using that to send proper amount of firefighting units, getting image of car crash to see how bad the situation is... A picture might not tell more than a thousand words, but it tells a lot.

I think this is awesome idea. The only problem I see is that if I got into a car accident and panicked and called 911, I don't think that starting to take good and informative cellphone images is something I could do. But from houses burning and such... Sure.

So let me see....

[Maelwryth]

"When 911 callers tell police operators that photos or video related to their complaint are available, a detective with the New York Police Department's Real Time Crime Center will call back to receive the images."

Instead of one phone call and staying on the line, you now have to hang up so a detective can call you back to teach you how to send an image from your phone?

Have they even thought about the way they are going to make people feel at their weakest most vulnerable moment? And then great, they have a picture. This will help how? A video will be next to useless as you will be shaking to much. A picture may be worth a thousand words but it isn't going to help if most of those words are "covered in blood". What if the light is bad, and makes the patient look like they have blue lips? I have to imagine they have thought of all these things. TFA says little to nothing.

"Bloomberg said in a statement. "If your cell phone is equipped with a camera--and many are these days--you might be able to get a picture of something that will help the police solve a crime."

Or you might cause another as the criminal beats the hell out of you to get your phone.

Re:So let me see....

[zeptobyte]

Realize that this is an option, not a requirement. It's not as if you'll call 911 and they'll demand that you provide photos or video. But if it's relevant to the situation, and you did managed to get a picture (for instance, as someone said above, taking pictures of a fire), they are now equipped to receive that picture. Or say you just witnessed a robbery in progress and you got a picture of the getaway car as it was leaving, you can now send that to them. And of course this is also available for non-emergency lines, where it will probably see more use as the situations are not time-critical.

Re:911?

[nospam007]

>I think this is a great addition. Just think of the 911 dispatcher being able to send a video of an injured person to a doctor or the EMS unit, allowing the caller to get expert medical advice.

But first they have to find it amongst the thousands of pictures of wrongly parked cars the overzealous 'photo-sheriffs' send in every hour.

It Will Happen

[DynaSoar]

People have been arrested for photographing buildings and such, and their equipment confiscated, being accused of plotting terrorist acts. People suspected of terrorism have had photographs they possessed used as evidence against them. Now people are going to be taking pictures and video of people, places and things in NYC, where they're already sensitized to this kind of thing.

It's only a matter of time before some law enforcement person sees someone taking pictures of something, intended to be sent to 911, and investigates the situation for possible terrorist intent. In most cases the "perp" will be able to show their true intent, but it's only a matter of time before someone can't get themselves cleared on the spot and is arrested for suspected terrorism. Almost everyone so accused and arrested have been cleared and released, but many of them have been held without due process for extreme amounts of time.

Envision a cab driver taking pictures of potholes. Not very damaging you'd think. Now envision that cab driver as wearing a turban, as many do in NYC. Figure their odds.