A crime reporting app shifts to tracking COVID-19

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 Citizens, an app that lets you see unverified crime reports in your neighborhood, has often been used to advance false claims. A doozy: a tiger reportedly loose in Manhattan that turned out to be a raccoon. Now the company wants to help cities track cases of COVID-19. 

Los Angeles County on Wednesday said it's partnering with Citizen for its contact tracing app SafePass. The app, unveiled in August, works as a digital pass for logging your symptoms and location. It uses Bluetooth and GPS to track your interactions with other people using the app. 

If someone you've been in contact with later tests positive for COVID-19 and marks themselves on the app, the app notifies you about the exposure and provides details on when and where it happened.

Officials, including Mayor Eric Garcetti and public health director Dr. Barbara Ferrer, encouraged the area's 10 million residents to download the app. Advocates, however, have warned that SafePass' location-tracking features are a privacy risk.

The mayor's office did not respond to a request for comment on privacy concerns with the app. 

"We have to deploy every tool at our disposal to halt the spread of COVID-19 –– from wearing masks to keeping our distance to avoiding large gatherings –– and contact tracing is an absolutely essential part of our effort to track this virus and save lives," Garcetti said in a statement. 

Public safety experts and lawmakers have criticized citizens for stirring panic in communities, accusing the app of inundating people with crime alerts while overall crime rates are at historic lows. The company's shift to public health raises alarms that it could bring that practice into a global pandemic. 

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