NYPD demands Google remove police reporting feature from Waze over DUI checkpoint concerns

The New York Police Department has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google, demanding its navigation app Waze remove a feature that allows users to report police locations.

The department is concerned Waze is enabling users to circumvent Driving While Impaired (DWI) laws, it wrote in a letter sent to Google over the weekend, according to The New York Times and Streetsblog NYC. While Waze does not have a DWI reporting feature, when users report the locations of police, they can leave notes as to what the officers are doing in the area.

The department is demanding Google "immediately remove this function from the Waze application" upon receiving the letter, wrote Ann Prunty, the NYPD's acting deputy commissioner for legal matters.

"Individuals who post the locations of DWI checkpoints may be engaging in criminal conduct since such actions could be intentional attempts to prevent and/or impair the administration of the DWI laws and other relevant criminal and traffic laws," Prunt wrote. "The posting of such information for public consumption is irresponsible since it only serves to aid impaired and intoxicated drivers to evade checkpoints and encourage reckless driving."

Google, however, does not see eye-to-eye on the issues raised by NYPD on the reporting feature.

"Safety is a top priority when developing navigation features at Google," a company spokesperson told The Verge in a statement. "We believe that informing drivers about upcoming speed traps allows them to be more careful and make safer decisions when they’re on the road."

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NYPD demands Google remove police reporting feature from Waze over DUI checkpoint concerns