UK police accused of uploading misleading Waze reports to encourage safer driving

The Surrey police force in the UK has found itself at the center of a controversy after one of its official Twitter accounts shared how some officers use Waze to encourage drivers to slow down. In a series of tweets spotted by The Guardian, the department’s Roads Policing unit revealed it uses the crowdsourced navigation app to share misleading information.

“We definitely don’t drop police markers on Waze at random points on our patrol, nope – never,” the unit said, adding a winking emoji for good measure. “An easy way to get drivers to slow down on our roads – thanks Waze.” As you can probably guess, the tweet wasn’t received warmly, with some people accusing Surrey Police of operating “phantom units” and violating the UK’s Computer Misuse Act. Others didn’t go so far, but many pointed out that Waze has a policy against repeatedly posting false reports.

“Technically not false though. We are there at that very specific point in time,” the traffic unit said in response to one accusation of sharing misleading information – this time using a smirking emoji to punctuate its point. “Nowhere on Waze does it say the patrol has to be stationary,” …read more