Why is police radio public

Fortnite Game of Thrones Books. Comics Music. Filed under: Policy Report. Why are police scanners open to the public? New, 82 comments. Linkedin Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Michigan police. Regardless, RCFP is against shutting the public out. Next Up In Policy. Sign up for the newsletter Verge Deals Subscribe to get the best Verge-approved tech deals of the week. Just one more thing! Please confirm your subscription to Verge Deals via the verification email we just sent you.

News reporters and the public can no longer tune in using police scanners to hear what officers in those cities are doing. Police scanners have been in existence for about 70 years. But some cities are taking a different approach. As the Post reported last month , the San Francisco Police Department will partially encrypt its radio transmissions when it moves to a digital system this year.

San Francisco dispatchers will use a public channel to send officers to an incident, such as a report of a robbery at a particular location. But when the incident concludes, dispatchers will state on an unencrypted channel what the outcome was, for example, officers took a report or made an arrest. In Berkeley, whose police department is closer in size to that of Palo Alto, the move to encryption is complicated by a number of factors, according to information obtained by the Post through a public records request.

Regional freedom of information organizations , hobbyists eager to assist the police, newspaper editorial boards , preppers on Reddit and some law enforcement departments have each at times advocated against encrypting general radio communications. None of them argue against encrypting communications among tactical, SWAT or otherwise sensitive operations, which are not public. But police departments and emergency communications directors who push for encryption have argued that publicly listenable airwaves make it easier for criminals to evade law enforcement, and also endanger officers.

Blanton pushes back especially forcefully on the latter claim. Many online-available Broadcastify feeds are delayed, sometimes by up to two minutes. One of those extraordinary cases came in , when Blanton agreed to a request by Boston police during their manhunt after the Boston Marathon bombing.

No departments sent Broadcastify any such requests during the unrest in late May and early June. To be sure, even as more departments have moved toward encryption, the impulse is hardly uniform. Some of them even actually broadcast to us. Some opt toward open channels over concerns that encryption might make cross-department or cross-agency communication more difficult. We believe that the benefits of securing the system outweigh the disadvantages.

Through much deliberation a decision was made. This also worked with the touch phones. Is the emergency number worldwide? The number is used as the emergency number only in the United States and Canada.

Some other countries do have three digit emergency numbers available. If you are traveling, it is recommended you familiarize yourself with the number in the country you are visiting. Unfortunately there are still areas in the United States that do not have a system in operation. One of the most dynamic changes is occurring now in Orange County. The entire law enforcement radio system is being converted to the MHz range.

This mutual aid availability is vital in a major incident such as earthquakes, fires, floods and other disasters. Irvine Police Department was selected to be the first law enforcement agency in the county to convert to the MHz radio system. The new system has many benefits for efficient communication that will enhance the overall safety of the community.

Over the years there have been many valuable enhancements in police communications. What does the future hold? These are just a few of the upgrades being developed to improve communications between the citizen, the Public Safety Dispatcher and the Police Officer.

We will see many more changes in the next decades. The potential is endless. City of Irvine. History of Police Communications.

By Supervising Public Safety Dispatcher Carol Fleischer When you call the police department on you feel confident they will know the telephone number and address from which you are calling. One of the projects currently working is to identify the location of those who call on their cellular telephones.