Sheriffs speak out against popular app that tracks police

(Image credit: Facebook.com/Waze)

Citing safety concerns, sheriffs from across the United States are asking Google Inc. to turn off a feature in its Waze app that warns users where police officers are located.

The app — which Google bought in 2013 for $966 million — has 50 million users in 200 countries, and provides real time traffic conditions as well as notifications of car accidents, traffic cameras, and construction zones; the locations of officers are marked with a police icon. Sheriff Mike Brown of Bedford County, Virginia, said this feature is a "police stalker," and Google needs to "act like the responsible corporate citizen they have always been and remove this feature from the application."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.