An app that passively records your life so you always have a witness | ...
`
`https://www.techrepublic.com/article/an-app-that-passively-records-your...
`
`An app that passively records your life so you always
`have a witness
`
`by Lyndsey Gilpin in Mobility
`on May 29, 2015, 4:00 AM PDT
`
`Alibi is an Android app that records the last hour of your life. So if you're in a protest,
`police altercation, or even a dangerous personal situation, you can always have
`evidence.
`
`Last year, Ryan Saleh was pulled over in New York City. Two police officers came
`knocking on his windows, and the one on the passenger’s side poked his head in the car,
`flipped on his flashlight, and started looking around.
`
`Saleh had nothing to hide, so he didn’t think much of it. But later, he was recounting the
`story for his uncle, an attorney, who told him that not only was the officer not allowed to
`do that, but if Saleh had evidence, he could bring a case against him for it.
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`An app that passively records your life so you always have a witness | ...
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`It got him thinking. So, he and three other software developers came together to build
`Alibi, an Android app that passively records all day long. Start it up, and it records audio,
`geolocation, images, and/or video. Every hour, it deletes what’s been recorded unless
`you save it.
`
`“The idea is that we all walk around all the time with the tools that we need to document
`our lives, [but] the only real reason we can’t is the amount of data that it encompasses,”
`Saleh said. “The truth is we know what we want to keep after the fact, we don’t know
`before.”
`
`The app couldn’t be any more timely, as the sensitivity to police brutality is at an all-time
`high. There was the shooting death of unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri;
`the choking of Eric Garner on the streets of New York City, caught on video, in which the
`officers were not charged; and the South Carolina police officer who shot an unarmed
`black man (which did end in an indictment).
`
`“We’re seeing a lot of this more and more, but for every instance that is recorded, there
`are 10 that aren’t,” Saleh said. And, pulling out a phone and pressing record in say, the
`instance of a traffic stop? Most of the time, that’s going to irk the cop. Alibi is meant to be
`passive because of that.
`
`Saleh said he sees Alibi as a tool to record many types of situations, including “police
`overreaching, police brutality, protests…often times we’ve heard from the comments
`section they see themselves using it for workplace sexual harassment, bullying in school,
`car accidents.”
`
`The default setting for Alibi is to record audio, images, and geolocation. Most Android
`phones pick up a four to six foot radius, and the images are just shy of HD quality. The
`video is relatively low quality but captures a lot, Saleh said, and the geolocation picks up
`once every 15 minutes. If you keep audio recording, have it take one photo a minute, and
`tag your geolocation, there’s no measurable effect on battery life. But if you record video,
`you’ll get about 85% of the phone’s normal battery life.
`
`Alibi launched publicly in January, and Saleh said it’s done much better than they hoped.
`They get a couple hundred downloads a week, and are now just shy of 10,000 total.
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`An app that passively records your life so you always have a witness | ...
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`https://www.techrepublic.com/article/an-app-that-passively-records-your...
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`Right now, it’s is only available on Android. As of 2013, Android had 77.8% of the
`worldwide market share, while iOS had 17.8%. And in the US, Android accounts for 50%
`of sales compared to Apple’s 40%. That actually works in favor for the “at-risk
`population” that Alibi is marketed toward, which can benefit from the hold that Android
`has on the market.
`
`One of the biggest challenges for the Alibi team has been the iOS app. They have an
`iPhone app basically ready for market, but Apple’s SDK doesn’t allow users to run a
`camera in the background. Android is much more liberal about what you can and can’t
`do with the API, but with Apple, any app using resources has to be front and center on
`the screen. For instance, if you’re on a Skype video call and want to check your email,
`the video will cut out while you do that. When you open up Skype again, it reconnects.
`
`“There’s a lot of talk [about] changing this, Apple has hinted at it in all support forums and
`things like that, but there’s never a guarantee,” Saleh said.
`
`Alibi is the tenth app he has launched and he said there are always issues with iOS
`limitations. But if and when this rule does change, he said the iOS version of Alibi will be
`available within a week or so.
`
`The other pertinent issue with Alibi (and smartphones in general) is the legal issues
`regarding recording the police. When you first install the app, a disclaimer about
`complying with local laws pops up. In the US, the laws regarding filming are pretty liberal.
`Legally, there is nothing a police officer can do to stop someone recording in a public
`place. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has a “Know Your Rights” guide for
`photographers that was updated in July 2014. Private property owners can make rules
`for photographing, but on public land, anything in plain sight is okay to photograph.
`
`“It’s an evolutionary time, people carrying mobile cameras in their pockets and
`inspecting how policing is done, and there’s been some conflicts there,” said Jay Stanley,
`a senior policy analyst for the ACLU. “Photography is a form of power, and a lot of police
`don’t like to be recorded. There’s a persistent pattern of abuses where law enforcements
`order people to stop filming or harass them or worse for filming police actions. On the
`legal front, courts have made it entirely clear people do have a right to record law
`enforcement in public.”
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`According to the ACLU guide, which Stanley wrote, cops cannot confiscate or demand to
`view audio or video without a warrant and cannot delete images. It also says, however,
`that “police officers may legitimately order citizens to cease activities that are truly
`interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations.”
`
`There’s really no justification for that, Stanley said, except for police saying the video you
`take contains evidence of a crime. But if the officer is the one that committed it, that case
`isn’t legitimate. In DC, the police have a formal policy allowing people to email the video
`to them rather than hand the phone over.
`
`He added that there have been cases where police are charged with destruction of
`evidence for taking and destroying phones, because it is completely in an individual’s
`rights to record and in no case do they have to hand over the device.
`
`“But if your phone is going to be taken, having it streamed to the cloud can be a
`solution,” he said.
`
`As far as international use goes, Alibi has a significant number of downloads in Turkey
`and the Middle East, Ukraine, and Russia. Saleh said there’s usership in China, though
`he’s fairly sure the Chinese government doesn’t know about it yet. He envisions it
`becoming an issue and the government has the ability to ban it from app stores if they
`decide to, though that isn’t a huge concern for him. The app is free and users are able to
`download, share it with other phones, host privately regardless of whether it was bought
`on an official app store or not.
`
`“The app is meant to be used in confines of law, but it is meant to test the limits of law in
`places like Russia and Syria and what not,” he said.
`
`About half of Alibi’s users are domestic and half are abroad, and the app is being used
`about 60% of the time for political use (i.e. protests) and about 40% for personal use,
`according to feedback the Saleh has heard.
`
`Privacy for the user is just as important. Alibi doesn’t ask for an internet connection, and
`the team doesn’t know anything about its users besides how many downloads they
`have. It records and then deletes the data if a user doesn’t save it. If it is saved, the data
`is hidden in a folder on the smartphone where media scanners can’t find it. So if a police
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`officer or someone else has your phone, they don’t have the ability to delete it. Saleh
`said that version 2.0 may have a Dropbox account integration, so users can save files
`into their directory and have the data replicated on Dropbox’s servers for extra backup.
`
`The team plans to host a discussion forum through the Alibi website, so users can share
`their feedback, requests for improvement, and general use cases. They want to engage
`the community in a safe way.
`
`“I want this to be a more private community. There is sensitivity around the data being
`recorded and people do get uncomfortable,” he said. “I want this to feel more private and
`less discoverable.”
`
`Though it seems like a niche app right now, as Saleh said, anyone can find themselves in
`a situation that they wish they could have evidence for.
`
`“The fact is police officers have a lot of power in our society and can abuse that power,
`so it’s hard to make them accountable for it,” Stanley said. “To anger a police officer is
`something a lot people are afraid to do.”
`
`On the other hand, the legal right to record does offer a certain amount of protection and
`empowerment.
`
`The ACLU recently developed an app called Mobile Justice, which allows you to record
`and report any instances of police brutality on the go. It’s been adopted in California,
`Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, and Oregon. I’m Getting Arrested is an Android app that
`sends emergency messages to people in your phone. Stop and Frisk Watch is a free app
`developed by the New York Civil Liberties Union to report unlawful stop and frisk
`encounters. The SWAT App allows you to record and livestream police encounters, and
`also informs you of your rights. Similarly, platforms like Periscope and Meerkat allow you
`to livestream video to see the world in real-time through other people’s eyes.
`
`“Information is our friend,” Saleh added. “And we should be getting as much out there as
`we can.”
`
`Also see:
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`An app that passively records your life so you always have a witness | ...
`
`https://www.techrepublic.com/article/an-app-that-passively-records-your...
`
`• Smart guns: Can tech bring transparency to law enforcement?
`• How digital health clinic Maven is revolutionizing women’s healthcare
`• Intel looks to teen scientists to improve solar power, cybersecurity, and cancer research
`
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`
`By Lyndsey Gilpin
`Lyndsey Gilpin is a former Staff Writer for TechRepublic, covering sustainability and
`entrepreneurship. She's co-author of the book Follow the Geeks.
`
`MOBILITY
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