Is Waze a Threat or a Tool?

            Technology has majorly impacted our society, both bad and good. It has sped up daily tasks and quick access to information, but has increased identity theft and decreased privacy. The same holds for Google’s popular app, Waze. This trending app notifies the user of accidents, traffic jams, police locations, and more. The controversial component of this app is the feature “traffic cop”. This feature relays police locations on the field to the user. To many police officers, this feature may be lethal and detrimental. Last Decemeber, Ismaaiyl Brinsley murdered two New York officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. The murderer used the Waze app to locate the innocent police officers and assassinated them. Others fear, the app can be a tool to avoid policeman. Drunk Drivers and Speeders could avoid Police checkpoints and could cause harm to themselves and others. Even though this app may benefit the public avoid traffic tickets and jams, is this tool worth the risk?

            At first, many citizens would see this app as money and time saver. As the negatives are then shown, many would change their opinion. This app is not worth the risk. As the story illustrates the danger to Policeman, citizens are also at danger. Drunk driving and speeding may resume, by just by a click of a button to avoid a police checkpoint. Criminals may use this as a tool to plan their next crime. These risks are not great enough to deficit the benefits of avoiding traffic tickets and traffic jams. The public needs to help our society by asking Google to take this feature off the app. In the long run, this would be the best option for all, even though it may not seem to be. 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/23/opinions/clarke-thompson-google-waze-danger/index.html