UK police accused of uploading misleading Waze reports to encourage safer driving:
The Surrey police force in the UK has found itself at the center of a controversy after one of its official Twitter accounts shared how some officers use Waze to encourage drivers to slow down. In a series of tweets spotted by The Guardian, the department's Roads Policing unit revealed it uses the crowdsourced navigation app to share misleading information.
"We definitely don't drop police markers on Waze at random points on our patrol, nope - never," the unit said, adding a winking emoji for good measure. "An easy way to get drivers to slow down on our roads – thanks Waze." As you can probably guess, the tweet wasn't received warmly, with some people accusing Surrey Police of operating "phantom units" and violating the UK's Computer Misuse Act. Others didn't go so far, but many pointed out that Waze has a policy against repeatedly posting false reports.
"Technically not false though. We are there at that very specific point in time," the traffic unit said in response to one accusation of sharing misleading information – this time using a smirking emoji to punctuate its point. "Nowhere on Waze does it say the patrol has to be stationary," it added.
[...] Surrey Police issued the following statement:
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2022, @07:23PM
Don't get too upset if you are relying on the crowdsource where the patrol cars are also part of that crowd.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Freeman on Thursday September 01 2022, @07:33PM (1 child)
Technically correct, is the best kind of correct.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Funny) by Thexalon on Thursday September 01 2022, @08:16PM
In general, I approve of efforts to remind people that the representation of some aspect of the universe in a computer is not identical to the actual real-life thing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2022, @08:20PM
Now, what they're talking about sounds like a legit conspiracy; but I don't know if what I'm experiencing is conspiracy or just a curious dynamic.
I've noticed that you can often do well by driving towards reported accidents that are "backing up the freeway". I lean away from the accident reports being a conspiracy though. I'm using the local radio, so I think by the time the accident report is broadcast, everybody using more advanced reporting tools has already avoided it, and it's in the clearing stages or already cleared.
YMMV of course. If you're close to the crash and the reporting is timely, duh! Avoid it. It's just that it seems like when I get stuck, I don't find out *why* until after the fact. If I were using an app I'd probably find out sooner... but I'd be distracted and I might be the cause of the back-up.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday September 02 2022, @12:03AM (2 children)
This is why it is important to acknowledge or deny reports on Wise. Just hit the button.
I have seen myself somewhere Midwest this spring how somebody a bit ahead of me was sending false reports every couple of miles. I did not suspect police though.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Friday September 02 2022, @02:04AM
Does Waze have a weighting for reports, so that someone making reports that are contradicted often gets downranked?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday September 02 2022, @04:21AM
But how do you know that there was no hidden patrol? Unless at that place there was nowhere to hide, of course.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2022, @06:22AM
A few years ago we had major riots all over England because people trusted a drug dealer more than they trusted the police.
It would appear that someone did not learn the lesson.
The public image of the police is key to their survival, and they need to get this into their heads - at all levels of the force.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Friday September 02 2022, @12:46PM
The real news of this submarine marketing is that Waze is still around, I hadn't thought of that since like 2015.
What I remember about Waze was the juice was not worth the squeeze, WRT sharing attention with my phone while theoretically paying attention to my driving. Instead of F-ing around with my phone for five minutes while I'm supposed to be driving, while the app interferes with my audio book player or music player, why not leave five minutes earlier so I don't have to speed to catch back up to where I'd be if I wasn't using Waze to begin with?
Or maybe rephrased the safest way to find out about the accident up ahead and avoid becoming part of it, would be to pay attention to the road instead of playing on my phone even more than already necessary.