But it has continued to court controversy. In 2017, it relaunched as Citizen and played down the role of civilians in finding and reporting incidents. Citizen originally launched in 2016 as “Vigilante” but was quickly removed from the Apple App Store after it was criticized by law enforcement for encouraging people to rush toward crime scenes to document them. While Citizen is positioning Protect as complementary and supplementary to existing public emergency response systems, the startup hasn’t always stayed in its lane, or been clear in its execution. “When somebody is breaking into your house or you need help, you’re forced to rely on a 911 system that was really built in the 1960s.”

“I find it just fascinating that when you want a burrito, there’s 10 different apps on your phone that can get you that burrito as quickly as possible,” Frame said. When you need help, you can actually use Citizen to get that help,” said Citizen CEO Andrew Frame in an interview last week against a Zoom background that included the words: “Making your world a safer place.” “Citizen is now a two-way system with the launch of Protect. It declined to say how many it has on staff.) (These agents are employees, according to Citizen. They can also help with a variety of other scenarios, Citizen said, such as guiding a person to a nearby cooling station during a heat wave, monitoring someone on a first date or an evening stroll for peace of mind, or issuing an alert about a missing loved one or pet, among other use cases. Protect agents can then escalate a situation to 911, or a person’s emergency contacts. Helicopters, a patrol car and virtual bodyguards: Inside Citizen's scattered push to upend public safety iPhone in New York, on Thursday, June 13, 2019.

The Citizen application is displayed on an Apple Inc.

Crime alert monitoring center