Finally, a Reason to Buy an iPhone

Current iPhones have the ability to  record your encounters with police by saying, "Hey Siri, I’m getting pulled over," and the phone records and sends a copy to a contact of your choice:

As protests against racial police violence have spread across the US, we’ve seen how video captured on mobile devices can help identify misconduct by law enforcement. But such evidence isn’t just useful at a protest, but during all sorts of routine interactions with the police, including traffic stops. That’s why the Siri shortcut “I’m getting pulled over” exists.

Once you load this (free) shortcut onto your iPhone, all you need to do is say “Hey Siri, I’m getting pulled over” and it will kickstart a chain of events. It will dim your phone, pause any music being played, and start recording video from your front-facing camera. It can also send your current location and a copy of that video to an emergency contact, though you’ll need to confirm a few pop-up messages to complete these steps.

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So, to get things up and working, you’ll have to first make sure iOS is updated to at least iOS 12. Then, download the Shortcuts app which you can find here on the App store. After that’s done, visit this link on your mobile device from the built-in Safari browser to set-up the shortcut. (Be careful: other browsers won’t work!) You’ll also need to make sure your phone can load unverified shortcuts (go to Settings > Shortcuts and toggle Allow Untrusted Shortcuts to allow this) and give the program access to your location, which you can see how to do here.

OK, this is legitimately neat as hell.