iPhone hack records police by using Siri
The 'shortcuts' app can be used during a traffic stop
A number of social media users and reporters have returned their attention to an old iPhone shortcut that prompts a phone to immediately start recording through its voice-activated smart assistant, Siri.
Reddit user Robert Petersen originally created the shortcut called "I'm getting pulled over," which aims to record police encounters with citizens for proof of interactions, in 2018.
"This just...records things," Petersen said of the app in a June 16 tweet. "That’s perfectly [c]onstitutional to record police, and if they are doing their jobs as they should be there’s no problem for them. I’ll add that I’ve talked to some officers and none of them have had any issue with it at all."
Petersen posted a link to the latest iOS version of the shortcut to his Twitter last week after finding out that people were "passing around an old version" of the shortcut.
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To install the feature, users must open the link Petersen provided on their iPhones, which will then lead users to the "Shortcuts" app. The app, available on iOS versions 12.0 or later, is meant to make Siri commands easier.
Users may get a notification that says the Shortcuts app can not open the "I'm getting pulled over" hack because their "Shortcuts security settings don't allow untrusted shortcuts." This means the shortcut has not been reviewed and approved by Apple. To get around the block, users can change their Shortcut preferences in "Settings."
Once users allow untrusted shortcuts, they will have access to "I'm getting pulled over."
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When using the shortcut, a user's phone will automatically alert a specific contact to inform that person that the user has been pulled over. The shortcut will also employ a user's location data, camera, brightness and volume levels so the phone can immediately begin recording once the shortcut is deployed.
The shortcut will send recordings to a user's specified contact through iCloud or Google Dropbox.
Petersen said in a 2018 USA Today interview that his only goal with the app is to “help people stay safe...and honest."
"99.999 percent of the time you’ll never need it, but if you end up in a situation where it ended up being a good idea, you’ll be thankful you did," he told the outlet.
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Petersen's shortcut has come into the limelight more recently after George Floyd, a black Minneapolis man, died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for eight minutes; the final moments of the act were caught on camera and used as evidence.
Since Floyd's death, activists have been posting videos and images of other violent police-citizen encounters on social media and calling on others to "defund the police." Several major cities including Minneapolis, New York City, Philadelphia Los Angeles and others have outlined plans to cut funding and reform departments.