http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/cops-decry-waze-traffic-app-as-a-police-stalker/
The police have no expectation of privacy while in Public either. There are court cases (both State and Federal) supporting motorists alerting others of the presence of police (flashing headlights). Using Waze this way is nothing more than a variation on the original.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/26/police-pressure-google-turn-off-waze-app-feature or http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-waze-google-lapd-response-20150127-story.html
So heres my thoughts on this and what waze can do to keep the feature but yet help improve “officer safety.” As a police officer myself, with the growing number of attacks on police these days, the concerns by law enforcement are legitimate, however I think a compromise can be reached per say to make everyone happy. If Waze is forced to make a change, My solution, keep police reporting functionality exactly the same along with alerting for them, however just remove the icon for them on the map. That way people can’t just “scan the map” to find police sitting somewhere and will only receive an alert if they are driving on a road where police have been reported. That way, us wazers still get what we want, and the police get what they want.
Related threads:
Do Not Remove Police Locations
Police against waze news story
I responded to this on the main App thread too. I’ll also counter with: With the increase in police militarization these days, the concerns of the public in wanting to know where the police are at all times are legitimate. There have been zero “attacks” on police because of this app, and only one attack recently where a nut went looking for cops deliberately (i.e. as opposed to someone who was already involved in a non-violent confrontation with police and became violent). Despite numerous demands by the public, Law Enforcement has not stopped amassing gigantic volumes of data on perfectly innocent citizens, or stopped using things like plate scanners or the new radar that lets them see into our houses without a warrant; this is one of only a small number of tools available to the public to keep track of their Public Servants in return.