What to Know
- The New York Police Department wants the navigation app Waze to stop warning drivers about sobriety checkpoints
- But Waze says the app shows "general police presence" and not DWI checkpoints specifically
- The dispute centers on a feature that shows drivers a mustachioed cartoon officer at locations where other Waze users have spotted police
The New York Police Department wants the navigation app Waze to stop warning drivers about sobriety checkpoints.
But Waze says the app shows "general police presence" and not DWI checkpoints specifically.
The dispute centers on a feature that shows drivers a mustachioed cartoon officer at locations where other Waze users have spotted police.
The NYPD sent a letter to Waze's parent company Google last weekend warning that people who post the locations of DWI checkpoints "may be engaging in criminal conduct." The letter demands that Google remove the officer-spotting function from Waze.
Waze says in a statement that it believes highlighting police presence "promotes road safety" because people drive more carefully when they know there are officers nearby.
Waze says there is "no separate functionality" for reporting DWI checkpoints
