New York police have equipped Android-smartphones with "police" applications for quick access to databases

The New York City Police Department launched a smartphone smartphoneization program. As a pilot phase, 400 policemen were given smartphones with special applications that help to quickly access the necessary data, whether it is the identity of the criminal or the owner of a particular car.

The most interesting thing is that these smartphones can not receive calls, you can not make calls from them either. But these mobile devices are connected to the Web, so you can send and receive data without any problems. According to representatives of the police department, such a work scheme can significantly accelerate the work of police officers in the above situations. Police cars are equipped with computers, yes. But often, in order to get any information, the police officer needs to log in several times for different databases, and in some situations every second is precious.

An example is the real situation when the police needed to carry out the situation in Harlem. The policemen, upon arriving in the district, dialed the address of the building associated with the operation, and after a couple of minutes received comprehensive information about all the inhabitants of this house, including their full name, the history of the police’s drives, photographs of some residents (those who had already been sent to the police). Police officers were even able to access the recordings of surveillance cameras placed on the building.



Earlier, when detaining a criminal, the police sometimes had to turn to dispatchers for help, who could tell if the detainee had been arrested or not. But the dispatcher usually cannot name the reason for the detention.

According to representatives of the police department, smartphones can be useful in the analysis of domestic crimes. For example, you can see how many times the police were called at the specified address, which was the cause of the conflict and so on and so forth.

San Francisco police are also keeping up with their New York counterparts. There are now also specialized applications that are different from those used by New York police. So, now in San Francisco, the police can dictate reports, attaching to the dictated photo of their police badge (to identify who reported in the future).

It is only interesting what will happen if the policeman forgets his smartphone in the bar. Is it possible to disconnect the device remotely from the database? Or can anyone who receives such a smartphone be able to work with the information of the police department, like the police officer himself?

Via nytimes