Envision your ideal neighborhood. Maybe it’s on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs, where every neighbor has a well-manicured lawn, a two-car garage, and everyone gives each other a friendly wave on their way to work. Or maybe you live in a high-rise building in a dense urban center, where you take public transit to the office five days a week and say hello to your doorman on your way out. Whatever your neighborhood might look like, there’s always a sense of wanting to know the people who live around your- or at least an unspoken reliance on one another to ensure that your surroundings are safe. What happens when technology brings you and your neighbors together to report on local happenings? Is it a good thing, or does it create a vigilante situation gone awry?
Neighborhood safety and crime reduction are large focal points in many communities. Many tech companies are working to make those conversations more informal and in some instances, put policing in the hands of ordinary citizens. New apps, which have emerged in the last few years, are enabling people to see crime updates and commentary in real-time, sometimes helping people be more aware of their surroundings and understand neighborhood issues, but in other instances, have done more harm than good.
In 2020, an app called Citizen was one of the top-ranked news apps in Apple's store. Available in more than 30 major cities across the United States, it promoted itself as a personal safety network that offered services like COVID-19 contact tracing, notifications about real-time crime alerts, and safety tracking measures for users and their friends. Their goal was to create a network of mass surveillance to allow people to feel safer in their cities, and in cities that they may visit and not be familiar with. By giving people agency to report a crime, their goal is to increase transparency about how crime occurs and is resolved in hopes of building safer communities.
