“Nobody’s getting a real tactical advantage over the police by listening to their day-to-day operations, so we categorically reject that assertion,” he added. “That’s an eternity in law enforcement time,” he said. Many online-available Broadcastify feeds are delayed, sometimes by up to two minutes. “The argument that broadcasting the day-to-day of dispatch operations endangers officers is ridiculous, frankly,” he said. “The argument that broadcasting the day-to-day of dispatch operations endangers officers is ridiculous, frankly.”īut police departments and emergency communications directors who push for encryption have argued that publicly listenable airwaves make it easier for criminals to evade law enforcement, and also endanger officers.īlanton pushes back especially forcefully on the latter claim. Broadcastify’s terms of service also prohibits broadcasting such sensitive communications.) (None of them argue against encrypting communications among tactical, SWAT or otherwise sensitive operations, which are not public. Regional freedom of information organizations, hobbyists eager to assist the police, newspaper editorial boards, preppers on Reddit and some law enforcement departments have each at times advocated against encrypting general radio communications. That is to say, advocates for open, unencrypted communication can sometimes make curious coalitions.

The site uses scanner information to map police actions in order to “aid protesters on the ground.” Indeed, recent reports have spotlighted the ways in which protesters in several cities have relied on scanner apps to monitor police responses. Others, like the developers of Scanmap, use the communications for more progressive ends. Many, like crime blog CWB Chicago, which often tweets chatter with the #ChicagoScanner hashtag, are focused on updates about violent crime. And people who participate, either directly or indirectly, use it to a variety of ends. Chicago has one of the most robust police scanner communities in America. | Photo: Shutterstock Curious Coalitionsīuilt In happens to be headquartered in scanner country.

Chicago has one of the most active scanner communities in the country. As the Broadcastify surge seems to illustrate, not everyone thinks that’s a good thing.Ī Chicago police car parked below the L tracks. Departments from Denver to Racine, Wisconsin, to Sioux City, Iowa, have all made the move to encryption, and the trend seems likely to continue as departments shift from analog to digital, according to experts. But even as scanner communities overall have seen their ranks steadily thin since their 1970s heyday, the moment pointed to a strong hunger for police radio information.īut in many communities, that information isn’t available to the public anymore, as local departments have moved their communications to encrypted police radio systems. It may have seemed an odd, if entirely logical, surge of old-school tech - hobbyist-associated scanner radio - midwifed through modern delivery systems.

Scanner Radio, 5-0 and other similar apps front-end Broadcastify feeds, which the company licenses to developers through an API. Even those spikes in app downloads were, in a sense, also spikes in Broadcastify traffic. The shift was reflected in the App Store, too, which saw the likes of Scanner Radio - Fire and Police Scanner and 5-0 Radio Police Scanner scale the charts, with some surpassing even the likes of TikTok and Instagram. This presents an issue with public transparency, eliminating the ability for people to maintain real-time security within their own communities and reducing the already dwindling trust offered toward local police departments. As popularity in app-based police radio scanners ballooned in 2020, many departments began to encrypt their radio communications so only those within the department can receive messages.

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