zlacker

>>eloran+(OP)
Hi there! I'm the owner and operator of Broadcastify, which is the platform that powers all the apps that provide police scanners and public safety communications online. I'm an active HN reader and would be glad to answer any questions folks have.

It's an interesting business to be in these days...

>>blanto+h7
Isn't police radio usually scrambled? It is where I am in Norway. It was legal to listen to it before it was scrambled though. Not sure if it's legal to de-scramble it, if it's at all possible. AFAIK you can still listen to the ambulance channel, though, but sometimes the details are ... grisly.

>>kebman+Rs1
In the United States, no. Police, emergency, first responder radio transmissions are generally in the clear. I don't know the precise history of it, but I have always assumed it is a combination of legacy (emergency radio in the United States is very old, and predates cheap and convenient electronic encryption standards), compatibility (first responder funding and maintenance in the United States is generally a local and state issue, so practices vary widely; for anybody to successfully come up with an encryption standard would require an unusual top-down standardization that has only been seen in extraordinary circumstances, such as after September 11th), and utility (in a disaster scenario where disparate groups coming from disparate points of the country might need to quickly ad hoc communications with each other, the absolute last thing you want is lives on the line while people are configuring their encryption protocols for their radios... Nor do you want to deny local volunteers the ability to understand where first responders are and how to get to them by having that information communicated in scramble).

>>shadow+Fu1
There are more Encrypted than you think, though most Responsible Dept will leave the general dispatch channel open and only encrypt tactical talk groups

My City Encrypts 100% communications including EMS, Fire, Police and Emergency repose, it is a stupid policy but...

https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Encrypted_Agencies

>>syshum+QS1
I understand the desire to be able to listen in/oversight during riots and conflicts between demonstrators and police. It make less sense in cases where someone is a victim of a crime or a patient being transported as such individuals are protected from the public prying eye. When recording devices and storage is so cheap as it is now it should be assumed that any communication traveling in clear is captured and stored.

>>belorn+E22
>>It make less sense in cases where someone is a victim of a crime or a patient being transported as such individuals are protected from the public prying eye

Few things there, first "victim of a crime", most area's criminal reports are public records as they should be. Allowing the police to operate in secret is a very bad thing

Further outside of location information is a rare that other personal info is transmitted over the air anyway, general descriptions etc sure but...

Finally I think the public value, and transparency we get from having open air dispatch far far far far outweighs the limited privacy concerns. People say the same things when police are mandated to wear body cams, just like in those situations the public right to know what the police are actually doing far outweighs some minor privacy concerns.

We need FULL transparency in policing right now.

>>syshum+vT2
Here in Sweden, the public record goes in effect only after the investigation has been closed. Before that it is kept secret. The record can also be partially hidden in some circumstances in order to protect the integrity of the victim.

And even when its public record, there is a large consensus that some of it should not be published to a larger audience. There was a now old incident where pirate bay had a torrent of a public record covering the investigation of death of several children. It was one of the few torrents that if I recall right, the pirate bay voluntarily took down. A lot of people commented that police should have used more discretion in what they put in the public record.

Body cams has the same issue. It is good that they exist. There is however cases when the record should be kept secret. The default should always be transparency, with exceptions when there is good reason to keep it away from the public. As a obvious example, the body cam recording from a police arriving to a rape scene with the undressed victim should not be public record.