New York to use new technology on the 911 service to receive photos and videos

January 19, 2007 | In: Cellular Phones, General

911 Emergency Operator

In an effort to combine technology and citizens to fight crime, the folks at New York City will be able to send photo and videos to 911 – the emergency telephone number – whenever they are presented to suspicious activities or crimes.

Lets say you are on the street and watch someone getting robbed, what you should do is use your cellphone (hopefully it has a camera) to take a photo or record a video of the criminal, which will afterwards be used by the police and their task will become easier because they already have an actual image of the guy instead of a simple description. Pretty useful, at least in theory…

There have been numerous reports of cell phone images being used to help solve crimes. In July 2005, police in London used cell phone images to identify attackers in the London bombings. The Associated Press reported in March 2006 that a 15-year-old girl in New York City used her cell phone camera to snap a picture of a man who was exposing himself to her on the subway

[Source: Cnet]