Citizen , theextremely dubious rebrandingof Vigilante — an app whichnotifies users of 911 reportsnear them and encourage them to go out and shoot videos of the crime and their aftermath — has somehow managed to develop a unexampled one shot of eight - figure funding .
PerGovernment Technology , Citizen has put forward $ 12.2 million in Series A funding from 32 investor , tote up to a seed stave of $ 3 million , and expanded from its first examination market in New York to an extra venture in San Francisco .
That ’s despite the fact Citizen ’s functionality is somehow mother alerting on recent 911 birdcall — the ship’s company has not explained how — set those alerts on a single-valued function , and encouraging users to get out there and dash videos of the criminal offence , all while winkingly telling them not to get immediately involved . It ’s something which has no clear track to monetisation , but does start the risk of sending rubberneckers to get themselves wallop .
Citizen now markets itself as a service for hoi polloi to ward off crime scenes , but when it was known as Vigilante , it said its mission was to crowdsource the idea of 911 . The society also liberate a promotional picture making it fairly empty the intent was to attract actual vigilantes to document said law-breaking scenes .
In the video , Vigilante showed footage of a valet say a write up of a suspicious human follow a woman nearby .
“ Do n’t intervene with the criminal offense , ” the video says . “ Keep a safe aloofness . practiced portion out there ! ”
The video then showed the Vigilante user promptly transgress both of those guidelines , rushing to the scene and point a photographic camera at the attacker from , like , five feet away .
“ Can unjustness exist transparency ? ” the picture then call for .
No wonder it was thenbooted off Apple ’s App Storeshortly afterGizmodo reportedthe app ’s potency to cause harm , as well as the NYPD ’s warning not to engage in this variety of behavior . Its intended exploiter fundament was essentially Travis Bickle .
Not much seems to have deepen under its new title of Citizen other than the new stigmatisation . One feature which leave substance abuser toreport crimes in progression directlyhas been bump off on a version of the app obtain by Gizmodo .
Nothing has changed about Citizen ’s nucleus inspiration , which seems to be that empowering random member of the public to enlist in mass surveillance is a good thing . Just take down that putting yourself at risk will not ennoble you to a slash of that $ 12 million .
We ’ve reached out to Citizen for comment , and will update this post if we get wind back .
[ Government Technology ]
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