BibMe Free Bibliography & Citation Maker - MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard. Could future iPhones come with a built-in panic button to discreetly summon the cops? It’s certainly a possibility, judging by Apple’s recent patent filings. AP Exams 2016: Score Release Date Schedule And Tips For Students Taking Advanced Placement Tests.

Apple’s Patented i. Phone Panic Button Might Not Make You Much Safer. Could future i. Phones come with a built- in panic button to discreetly summon the cops? It’s certainly a possibility, judging by Apple’s recent patent filings.

According to a patent granted to Apple on Tuesday for “Biometric Initiated Communication,” the panic button could operate from a number of inputs including “a particular finger or finger sequence,” “a particular timing or cadence,” or whether input was “entered with a particular force.”One possible application of the button is “to call emergency services without that fact being known to an assailant or other aggressive person that prompted the emergency call,” and potentially send GPS data and/or streaming audio or video to the authorities. It could also be used to execute a wipe of any crucial data on the phone, like social security numbers. It’s certainly a feature that at face value sounds suitably pro- safety.

But whether or not a cell phone panic button ends up being much more than security theater—something designed to provide the reassuring illusion of safety instead of actual safety—may end up relying on a lot of factors that can’t be engineered into a phone. A panic button by definition can only be as effective as the response it summons; while it may offer a new way to summon the cops, your mileage may vary depending on who those cops are. A 2. 00. 8 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey concluded that just 2.

At least for today, that means both the hardcore alt-right white supremacists and their alt-light camp followers are being driven back online to 4chan, 8chan.

Just one third of property crimes were responded to within 1. But individual police departments can do much worse, like in Baltimore, where in certain neighborhoods a domestic violence call could take an average of 1. According to the Economist, police in New Orleans took an average of 2.

Detroit police were taking close to an hour to respond to “priority” calls. It’s tough to imagine surreptitious panic button calls—especially in situations where the user might not be able to talk directly with a dispatcher—would do much better. A good comparison might be home security systems.

The New York Times estimated some 3. Watch At Risk Online Etonline. U. S. in 2. 01. 0, which is much less than the number of estimated i. Phones. Those stationary security systems are already a low police response priority, due in part to a high rate of false alarms.

In 2. 01. 1, the Detroit Police Department decided only to respond to burglar alarms after they were verified by the security company.) The problem of false alarms and where and how to direct police resources won’t be made easier by putting panic buttons in millions of phones, especially when considering recent research has found cell phone butt dials might already constitute a huge percentage of 9. There’s also the continued problem of police shootings in the U. S., in which vague or incomplete information about suspects can play a contributing role. But Apple is far from the first to come up with the idea of equipping phones with some kind of panic button. Earlier this month, the Mexican city of Juarez released the “No estoy sola” (“I am not alone”) app, which dispatches text messages to emergency contacts with a link to the location of the user. Another app developed by Kenyan university student Edwin Inganji had similar functionality, but also relayed information to authorities. In India, which last year rolled out a plan to equip all new phones with panic buttons and GPS by 2.

New York Times noted some advocates fighting the country’s epidemic of sexual assault were optimistic while others cautioned it wouldn’t solve deep- rooted problems with the responsiveness and professionalism of police forces in India.[CNBC].