(JNi.media) Innovative technology enabling quickly assimilation and analysis of Big Data is also providing new ways for humans to take more control over their on-road experience, and one of the most noteworthy among those is Waze, the world’s largest crowd-sourced traffic and navigation app, with millions of users in many countries. Waze users share real-time roadway and traffic information with the Waze network, turning an already reliable GPS program into a highly informative road support system.
Waze began in a 2006 community project founded by Ehud Shabtai called “FreeMap Israel,” with the aim to create, by community users, a free digital database of the map of Israel, and to ensure its convenient, free content is updated and distributed for non-commercial usage. Concurrently, LinQmap was founded in Israel by Uri Levine, software engineer Ehud Shabtai, and Amir Shinar, and in 2009 the company name was changed to Waze Mobile Ltd. In December 2011, Waze employed 80 people, 70 in Ra’anana, Israel, and 10 in Palo Alto, California. In 2010, the company raised $25 million in the second round of funding. In June 2013, Google bought Waze for $1.1 billion, adding social data to its mapping business.
By connecting drivers to one another, Waze is creating local driving communities that work together to improve road experiences by helping users avoid accident sites, sidestep traffic jams, find the best prices on gasoline, avoid traffic tickets, and find deals at local stores.
According to the Stratecast SPIE report, some of the very capabilities that make Waze the most feature-rich, interactive traffic and navigation app also raise questions about its impacts on privacy, law enforcement, and its coexistence with Google Maps.
Some road-safety advocates are concerned that the more drivers use Waze, the greeter the potential that they’d be distracted with a flurry of icons and notifications, putting them at greater risk of an accident—just like texting does.
In March 2014, a successful attempt was made by students from the Technion, the Israeli institute of technology, to fake a traffic jam on Waze. So criminal elements can use the app to their nefarious ends.
In December 2014, in a letter to Google, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck complained about the police locator feature, claiming it could be “misused by those with criminal intent to endanger police officers and the community.”
It has been alleged that Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who shot and killed two NYPD officers that month in retaliation for the police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, had used the Waze app prior to the murders and had posted a screenshot from the app on his Instagram account hours before the shootings.
Users are able to mark the presence of an officer with a small icon and indicate if the officer is visible or hidden. The LAPD, among other police agencies, pressured Google to disable the feature on the application. But Google argues knowing the whereabouts of an officer actually promotes safer driving.