Justice and Public Safety

Research indicates police departments can and are using a device on vehicles to extract troves of text messages, contacts, emails and other personal data from a connected smartphone — all without a warrant.

The New York City Department of Correction has increased the use of tablets since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to help offer information and resources to the individuals in custody within its facilities.

The emergency radio system in Delaware County, Pa., has been hijacked multiple times in recent years. The system, which was put in place during the 1970s, is overdue for a $50 million upgrade.

The latest surge in COVID-19 cases has put a big strain on both public safety and health services in San Francisco. As a result, officials only want residents to call 911 if there’s a clear life-threatening emergency.

Notwithstanding concerns about privacy and how data might be used, Lake County will now permit its municipalities to install automated license plate readers on roads owned by the county.

The acting police chief of the Bridgeport Police Department said she attributes a recent reduction in shootings to ShotSpotter. She argues that the city needs more of the sensor technology.

The deals come after the company, already big in human resources software, absorbed fresh capital from private equity firms. NEOGOV plans more moves to gain public safety business as departments upgrade digital tools.

The congressional investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack has revealed that misinformation about Antrim County, Mich., was part of a written plan to propagate Donald Trump's election fraud claims.

New Mexico’s most heavily populated county was hit with an apparent ransomware attack early Wednesday morning. Many systems are shut down, but public safety services remain in operation.

Waze, a navigation app owned by Google, has partnered with Norfolk, Va., to pilot an app that will allow drivers to get real-time information about flooded roads. The alert system was set up Monday.

The police department in Worcester, Mass., has now been awarded a $250,000 grant from the state that will go toward equipping officers with body cameras, joining 64 other jurisdictions that received similar money.

Franklin County, Maine, commissioners voted Tuesday to have high-resolution aerial photos taken of the county, buy five hybrid cruisers and upgrade jail security with federal stimulus funds.

The Supreme Court has determined that police need a warrant to search that information when it’s on a mobile phone, but that protection doesn’t extend to the information when stored on a car’s systems, experts say.

AT&T and Verizon have denied a request from the federal government to delay the launch of a new 5G mobile service that could disrupt air travel, but the two companies would pause 5G deployment near specified airports.

A legislative commission studying widespread use of police body cameras meets Tuesday — months after it missed a deadline to file a report called for in the one-year-old reform law that created the study group.

The latest of several security upgrades since the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., in 2018, the South Florida school district will randomly screen bookbags and purses with metal-detection wands starting this spring.

More than half of all law enforcement agencies utilize body cameras to improve public trust and safety. Research shows that body cameras have positive behavioral impacts on both officers and citizens.

The Erie, Colo., Police Department will soon be using one of the new technologies intended for officers to train and learn from mistakes via exclusive virtual reality training software, according to Erie officials.