Neowin News Feed for: Police

Ring will now let users share footage with police to help solve crimes

Karthik Mudaliar — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 20:16:01 +0000

Ring is integrating its Community Requests feature with Flock, which will allow public safety agencies, like the police, to request and receive footage from Ring users. Read more...

Accidentally activated Airplane mode saved this grandma $21,500 in the last second

Martin Hodás — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 16:49:06 +0000

An 85-year-old woman fell victim to a vishing scam. A fake relative convinced her to hand him cash. However, an Airplane mode helped to stop the ongoing scam right before they met in person. Read more...

Android's Emergency SOS increases accidental calls to police

Paul Hill — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 17:00:24 +0000

Police in Scotland has asked people to remain on the line if they accidentally place an emergency call through Android's Emergency SOS feature. It reported a large spike in calls due to Emergency SOS. Read more...

Volkswagen briefly refused to track car with abducted child inside until it received payment

Paul Hill — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 20:50:01 +0000

Volkswagen recently tried charging police $150 to enable a car tracking feature following the abduction of a young child. The company has apologized and said the rep breached the firm's processes. Read more...

GTA 6 leaker has been arrested in London following investigation

Steve Bennett — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 15:16:01 +0000

Following recent leaks of the new Grand Theft Auto 6 in development, a teenager from Oxfordshire, UK, has been arrested in London as part of an investigation by the UK National Crime Agency. Read more...

Axon halts its project to install tasers on drones to combat mass shootings

Karthik Mudaliar — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 16:34:01 +0000

Taser maker company Axon has decided to halt its plan to develop taser drones to combat mass shootings that could be pre-installed in public places after most members of its ethics board resigns. Read more...

Suspected Lapsus$ hackers rounded up by City of London Police

Paul Hill — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 18:00:02 +0000

A prominent member of the Lapsus$ hacking group has supposedly been identified as a 16-year-old boy; seven of the group's members have also been arrested by the City of London Police. Read more...

Gotta catch 'em all, LAPD cops fired for ignoring robbery call to hunt Snorlax instead

Sayan Sen — Tue, 11 Jan 2022 04:46:01 +0000

Two LAPD police officers were fired from the job in 2017 as available video evidence pointed towards them ignoring a robbery in progress call and instead, going hunting for a Snorlax in Pokémon Go. Read more...

Motorola launches in-car AI video system for police forces

Paul Hill — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 01:20:01 +0000

Motorola has made the M500 camera available for pre-order. It automatically captures footage from the backseat of police cars to ensure any incidents are caught on tape for a later review. Read more...

LAPD wants its officers to collect social media data of civilians

Karthik Mudaliar — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 18:00:01 +0000

The Los Angeles Police Department is pushing its officers to engage in the collection of social media data of civilians including those who are not arrested or accused of a crime. Read more...

UK: Met police will let smart speaker users call them with device

Paul Hill — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 02:12:01 +0000

The Metropolitan police is devising a new system that will allow residents of London to make calls to them via smart speakers. Internally, it said that this could be the beginning of the end for 999. Read more...

Facebook apologizes for translation that resulted in arrest

Richard Tyr Blewitt — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 16:18:01 +0000

Facebook has apologized, after a translation provided by its AI led Israeli police to arrest and question a Palestinian man, who they thought was about to launch an attack with his bulldozer. Read more...

Automatic Facial Recognition (AFR) technology was used to identify then arrest a man in the UK

Richard Tyr Blewitt — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 16:44:01 +0000

The South Wales Police deployed vans with facial recognition cameras into major public spaces ahead of the UEFA Champions League final, in order to identify known culprits and prevent crime. Read more...

Android ransomware attacks have grown by 50% in just over a year

Justin Luna — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 13:20:01 +0000

In a recent report by ESET, it was found that Android ransomware attacks have grown significantly in just a year. 'Police' ransomware has been found to be effective in scaring victims into paying up. Read more...

Local Canadian police departments admit to using "stingrays", spying on citizens

Vlad Dudau — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 14:29:59 +0000

A number of Canadian police departments, including those of Vancouver and Edmonton, have admitted to using controversial "stingray" technology to spy on citizens in a number of investigations. Read more...

Philadelphia police admit they disguised a surveillance vehicle as a Google Street View car

Andy Weir — Fri, 13 May 2016 20:26:01 +0000

An SUV with roof-mounted licence plate-scanning cameras, crudely disguised as a Google Maps Street View car, was spotted in Philadelphia this week - and the police department has admitted it's theirs. Read more...

Google's self-driving car gets pulled over for "driving too slowly"

Usama Jawad — Fri, 13 Nov 2015 10:34:01 +0000

A police officer in Mountain View, California, pulled over Google's prototype self-driving car for "driving too slowly" in a relatively speedier traffic zone. Read more...

Meth-carrying drone crashes near US-Mexico border

Usama Jawad — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 19:22:01 +0000

A drone carrying 3 kilograms of meth crashed in a supermarket's parking lot a couple of days ago. The Tijuana Police and other authorities have varying views regarding its whereabouts. Read more...

Australian police "not sure" how porn ended up on its official Twitter account

Jerry Grey — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 07:58:01 +0000

Australian police has been left red-faced after its official Twitter account retweeted and favourited porn, with one tweet showing a women in a pair of black furry winter boots and nothing else. Read more...

Indonesian police raid Gameloft office mistaking it for a gambling den

Usama Jawad — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 18:02:01 +0000

This Monday, Gameloft's Indonesian branch was unexpectedly raided by the police. Why? The police were under the impression that it was a secret illegal online gambling den. Read more...

German police searches 121 homes in piracy raid

Usama Jawad — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 18:50:01 +0000

The German police have carried out a massive anti-piracy raid with a considerable amount of storage media confiscated from the suspects of the 121 homes which were raided. Read more...

London police want to know who's likely to commit crimes ahead of time

Vlad Dudau — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 12:12:01 +0000

The London police department is testing predictive software that aims to find out who's likely to commit a crime before they actually do it. The tech is supposedly aimed at gangs and gang members. Read more...

UK police want mandatory passwords for all new phones

Andy Weir — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 14:17:02 +0000

London's Metropolitan Police has been lobbying the government and tech companies - including Apple and Samsung - to introduce mandatory passwords on all phones sold in the UK, to help reduce theft. Read more...

Man arrested after Microsoft finds child porn on OneDrive account

Andy Weir — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 23:39:40 +0000

A Microsoft tip-off led to a man being arrested after it discovered child abuse imagery on his OneDrive account, and found that he had tried emailing similar pictures from his live.com email address. Read more...

Google takes down sex offender by going through his personal e-mail

Vlad Dudau — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 09:11:31 +0000

Google, working alongside the Houston police, has taken down a sex offender who was found to have child pornography stored on his computer. Google noticed the illicit images in the offender's inbox. Read more...

Nokia paid millions of euros to software blackmailers

Andy Weir — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 17:07:59 +0000

Nokia paid millions of euros to blackmailers in 2008 who threatened to publish the source code for its Symbian OS - but after it left the money in a parking lot, police lost track of the suspects. Read more...

The future of emergencies? Canadian police receive tip about human remains on Facebook

Jett Goldsmith — Sat, 24 May 2014 01:01:38 +0000

A leaked email, sent by Saskatchewan's RCMP media relations division, has noted that the department received a private message on Facebook alerting them of "human remains" found by an area river. Read more...

Police raid home over Twitter parody account

Andy Weir — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 10:15:07 +0000

Police raided a home as part of an investigation into a Twitter parody account that mocked the mayor of Peoria, Illinois, alleging that the account's creator had impersonated a public official. Read more...

New York police department is testing Google Glass

James Walker — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 18:07:11 +0000

The New York Police Department is looking to test out Google Glass for its beat officers. Whether this will be a useful crime fighting tool or an invasion of everyone's privacy, only time will tell. Read more...

Downing Street Police officers found sharing pornography, through Bluetooth

Daniel Hull — Sat, 08 Feb 2014 14:54:48 +0000

So what really goes on outside 10 Downing Street? Well it turns out that 2 police officers face disciplinary action, over the exchange of hardcore pornography rumored to have been shared on duty Read more...

NYPD has a group dedicated to recovering stolen iPhones

Christopher White — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 00:20:04 +0000

"Apple Picking" has become such a problem that police in New York City have created a new division that is responsible for tracking down and returning stolen Apple products. Read more...

Apple Maps "potentially life threatening", says Australian police

Tim Schiesser — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 11:54:31 +0000

The Victorian Police Force has issued a warning to motorists not to trust Apple's Maps app in iOS 6, after some people became stranded in a forest after following directions too closely Read more...

Metropolitan Police issue warnings about ransom malware

Paul Ferson — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 19:20:05 +0000

The Metropolitan Police in London have issued warnings about potential ransomware attacks on computers, allowing hackers to limit access to your computer unless you cough up some cash. Read more...

Computers in LA beating LAPD at predicting crime

Paul Ferson — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 16:06:28 +0000

Technology trialled in the Foothill district of Los Angeles has been showing up the police analysts, surpassing their accuracy at predicting future crimes in areas at risk. Read more...

Police burst into wrong house to recover stolen iPhone

Andy Weir — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 07:20:22 +0000

The ability to remotely track a lost of stolen smartphone is great - but it's not 100% accurate, as one man discovered when police broke into his house, following 'Find My iPhone' location data. Read more...

Social media endangering undercover police work

Christopher White — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:25:15 +0000

Social media may make undercover police work impossible. Keeping identity secret is becoming an impossible task and even if you protect yourself, others can upload pictures of you without a thought. Read more...

UK police charge alleged Anonymous hacker

Byron Hinson — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:28:50 +0000

Police have charged a man under the Computer Misuse Act. Peter David Gibson allegedly carried out hacks against a number of companies as part of hacking collective Anonymous and faces 10 years in jail Read more...

LulzSec spokesman "Topiary" charged by UK police

Tom Dwyer — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 19:36:54 +0000

Earlier this week the UK police announced that they had arrested a suspected member of hacking group LulzSec. “Topiary” the apparent spokesperson was today charged with conspiracy to carry out a DDOS attack and unauthorised computer... Read more...

LulzSec spokesman "Topiary" has been arrested say UK police [Update: LulzSec confirms]

Tom Dwyer — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:41:00 +0000

Whilst LulzSec may now have disbanded, the police are still investigating their actions and have now released a statement announcing they have arrested a prominent LulzSec member under the name of Topiary. Topiary was named as... Read more...

TomTom says it won't sell data to police, then changes its mind

Christopher White — Mon, 09 May 2011 02:07:48 +0000

Last week we reported that GPS maker TomTom was selling customer data to the police in the Netherlands who were then taking that data and using it to setup speed traps in order to increase... Read more...