Citizen launches $ 20 protection service to call cops

Citizen, the self-proclaimed crime-fighting app, has launched a new premium service that, for $ 20 a month, lets you do something you can already do for free.

The company’s free platform serves as a public safety notification system that uses push alerts to notify users of emergency-related incidents occurring in their area (fires, car accidents, and suspected and confirmed criminal activity). Now, however, it has launched its paid service, called “Protect”– described as an “on-demand personalized mobile protection subscription that gives you 24/7 access to Citizen’s team of highly trained protection officers.” What is a Protect Agent, you ask? Frankly, they look a lot like your typical emergency dispatchers – you know, the kind you get when you call 911, for free? There are, however, a few tweaks.

Protect is essentially a customer service suite, in which the subscribers can be connected to an agent, who then stays on the phone with them during difficult situations or will simply be call “911 on your behalf”. There is also apparently a new ‘distress detection’ feature which, when activated, will use your phone’s mic to listen to you and if its algorithm picks up, say, the sound of you screaming for your life, it will connect you. to an agent. . The company explains it as follows:

… your audio is monitored by our AI-based technology which identifies sounds that indicate problems, such as screaming. When a distress signal is identified, you will be asked if you wish to be connected with a protection officer. And if you don’t respond within 10 seconds, you will be automatically logged in in case you have an emergency.

According to the company, the service also offers a “text-only” option, which can be used in situations where a caller “may not want to be seen calling 911”. Is it for if you’re taken hostage or what? A Citizen spokesperson gave the following examples:

We’ve seen Protect used in many different situations, whether it’s someone who has stage fright on the first date, carpools late at night, is in a difficult household situation, or just feels in danger when she comes home alone.

The company says it is launching the new service after testing it with nearly 100,000 beta users, and says it is trying to augment, not replace, already existing emergency response services. Yet while Citizen would like to convince Americans that he is trying to protect us all, it’s hard to look past his bizarre story or his seemingly non-ironic desire to become part of an overly watched future that none. of us do not actually wish. to live in.

When that launched in 2016, the app was called “Vigilante” and its business model was to ask users to capture and post videos of terrible things happening in their neighborhood (fires, shootings, etc.). He subsequently received a large injection of money and was renamed. Lately, he’s made it his mission to aggressively grow in any way he can.–come up with crazy ideas for weird new services, then go back frequently. For example, he recently plans announced-then then discarded them– dispatching on-demand security teams to app user quarters, a sort of Uber-meets-Blackwater trick that seemed like a really bad idea. More recently, it emerged that Citizen paid app users for basically become Jake Gyllenhaal’s character from Somnambulist, replacing them in a clique of broadcast pseudo-journalism to capture footage of local carnage, in a move that signals potential interest in the local information market.

However, despite all of these dreams of corporate growth, it’s not entirely clear how useful Citizen’s core public safety function really is. If you listen to some user reviews it doesn’t sound great: “The only thing I’ll say about this app is that I don’t like it,” said George G, a Los Angeles resident, in his 2019 YouTube review of the application. “He’s bombarding you with all this information. A lot of 911 calls are bullshit anyway. So if you want your phone to ring nonstop, to tell you there is a shootout or a car crash 10 miles awayway – which is literally, basically on another planet if you live in Los Angeles – this app is not for you.