ANDROID TOOLS FOR POLICE

It’s always nice to see progress. The New York Police Department has started issuing Android smart phones to their officers. As part of a pilot program that started quietly last summer with 400 officers, the hope is by having a smartphone with instant access to data, it will help the officers in the field. For now, the phones only have a data connection and don’t allow for calls or texts, however– that is not an issue because the officers now have a tremendous amount of access to central data. Cops now have information at their fingertips, which greatly helps improve the job they can do. Just look at this example:

Officer Tom Donaldson typed in the building’s street address and, with a few taps of the screen, an astounding array of information bloomed in his palm.

The officers suddenly had access to the names of every resident with an open warrant, arrest record or previous police summons; each apartment with a prior domestic incident report; all residents with orders of protection against them; registered gun owners; and the arrest photographs of every parolee in the building. The officers could even find every video surveillance camera, whether mounted at the corner deli or on housing property, that was directed at the building.

“You can see that in this one 14-story building there are thousands and thousands of records,” Officer Donaldson said

That one quote says it all my friends: the officers are loving the new technology as well. It is a great improvement over the standard in car computer they have relied on for so long. The computers can get spotty internet service throughout the city and they would have to log into multiple sites to get the same amount of information as the App smartphone.