Citizen FAQs

Citizen verifies videos of active crime scenes, suspect searches, fires, and other notable police or fire department activity. We verify videos that we want to alert users in the area about, and any video that provides additional information on an incident. When we verify a live video, a notification is sent to users within a couple miles.

In short, verified videos are engaging and help to confirm the details of an incident. Often, users take videos of NYPD and/or FDNY vehicles parked on scene. If theres not much else going on, we typically won't verify these.

Citizen was built to keep you safe and informed. As such, we reserve the right to remove any content (including but not limited to comments and videos) that violates our guidelines:

Harassment, discrimination, or hate speech targeting a specific individual or group

Specific personal information that could identify parties involved in an incident

Content that incites/facilitates/calls for harm or promotes/publicizes illegal activity

Obscene, graphic, or overtly sexual content

Details that jeopardize the safety of first responders

Spam, advertising of personal/commercial goods or social media handles

If a user has multiple pieces of content removed within a 30-day period, they may be temporarily restricted from contributing content on Citizen. If a user repeatedly violates Citizen's guidelines, they may be permanently restricted from contributing content.

You can help us by reporting content or users that violate these guidelines.Our moderators will follow up on all reports promptly and take appropriate action.

See How do I report users or chat messages? for more information.

If you witness an emergency, please call 911 immediately.

Most incidents on the Citizen app come from 911 calls, but we are testing a new feature that allows users to report what's happening around them.

These reports are created by starting a live broadcast. They may include information about protests, lost pets, downed power lines, and other community FYIs. Each report is reviewed by a moderator before it appears in the app to make sure reports do not violate Citizen's Terms of Service.

This feature is still in testing. If you have any questions, or you witnessed an emergency that was not reported on Citizen, please email [email protected].

At the moment, we report on a subset of incidents that are reported to 911.

Inclusions:We include major incidents that are in progress, or ones that we assess could affect public safety. This determination is madeon a case-by-case basis by our trained team of analysts. For example, we report on:

Alleged crimes in progress, including assaults and fights; incidents involving firearms or other weapons; and thefts, burglaries, and robberies

Fire, smoke, gas leaks, and situations involving hazardous materials

Heightened police activity, such as pursuits of suspects, officers requesting backup, crime-related canvasses, and special investigations of bomb threats or suspicious unattended packages

Exclusions:We leave out many minor incidents, or incidents that we assess are unlikely to impact public safety. We generally do not include:

Most medical-related incidents

Traffic stops

Verbal disputes that do not involve weapons or lead to physical altercations

Past Incidents: Many incidents are reported to police after they are already over. We generallydon'tinclude incidents where police are simply responding to take a report, since past incidentsno longer impact public safety. We may include if there's indication of an ongoing investigation, suspect search, or a new development occurs.

We are always trying to improve our ability to report on what matters most to our users. If you know of a major incident or crime in your neighborhood that was reported to 911 but did not show up in the app, please send details to [email protected], and we'll look into it.

Citizen's mission to keep people safe and informed. Now, with communities, you can follow the places you care about to receive emergency alerts no matter where you are.

Finding Communities

To find communities in your city, go to your Citizen profile and click on Places. This will open your Safety Network, where you can search for communities manually or near your current location, and follow or unfollow your places of interest, like where you live or work.

Community Notifications

When you follow a community, you will receive notifications for confirmed and/or escalating incidents reported within its boundaries.

During signup, you'll be asked to enter your phone number. After continuing, you should receive a four-digit code via text message.

If youdon'treceive a code within 60 seconds, please press "back" and make sure you entered the correct phone number, then try again.You also may want to check your connectionif you have poor cell phone coverage, the code may not arrive right away.

[email protected]

Make sure you enter the four-digit code directly into the Confirmation Number field in the Citizen app. If youre still having issues receiving or validating a code, please email us at . We'll be happy to help.

Citizen monitors a variety of public data sources using proprietary technology, allowing us to provide real-time alerts for crime and other emergencies reported to 911

Our central operations teama group of analysts with writing and public safety backgroundsare trained to make on-the-fly decisions about what goes into the app based on a set of complex criteria. We also conduct supplementary research that enriches our content compared to 911 reports.

For details on our guidelines for moderation, please see What are your chat moderation guidelines?

Reporting Chat Messages

To report a chat message, tap on the message, then hit report.

One of our moderators will review the message against our moderation guidelines and take action if needed.

Reporting Users

To report a user, visit their profile by tapping on their username. Tap the 3 dots in the upper righthand corner, then choose "Report User."

One of our moderators will review the user's account history against our moderation guidelines and take action if needed.

We are working to make chat a valuable source of real-time information. The "Nearby" icon indicates that a comment was posted bysomeone near an incident.

You may be unable to sign up for Citizen if you are located outside of our service areas.

Citizen is currently available in New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. We are heavily focused on building a reliable product in these cities. As a result, we only allow signups within those boundaries.

Nevertheless, we are working hard to expand Citizen's availability.You can let us know where you would like Citizen to come to next by requesting your city on our website.

Citizen is currently available in New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area.We're working hard to expand Citizen rapidly!

If you'd like Citizen in your city, please fill out this form on our website: https://www.citizen.com/#request-form. We'll let you know when we're ready to launch!

Follow us on Twitter for more updates.

Edit your profile

Open your Citizen profile by tapping on the icon located in the far left corner of the navigation bar, and then select "Edit."In this menu, you can make changes to your username, email, location, and mission statement.

Choosing a username

Your username will be visible on incidents you comment or record video on. Citizen strictly prohibits usernames that impersonate well-known individuals or Citizen employees. We also prohibit usernames that include or claim to be official public safety agencies.

Change your picture

To add or change a picture, click on the avatar and select Take photo or Choose from library. When you're satisfied with your selection, press "Save."

In order to receive notifications from Citizen, your phone's location and notification settings must be enabled. Please see the following instructions for iPhone and Android:

iPhone Instructions

Location settings

Follow these instructions to make sure you've turned on location services for Citizen. We need this information to send you relevant alerts.

Notification settings

Go to Settings > Notifications > Citizen, and make sure that Allow Notifications is enabled.

If you have notifications turned on but you're still not receiving alerts, the alert style might be set to None. Go to Settings > Notifications and make sure "Show as Banners" is also enabled.

Android Instructions

Location settings

Follow these instructions to make sureyou'veturned on location services for Citizen. We need this information to send you relevant alerts.

Notification settings

Go to Settings > Notifications > Citizen, and make sure that Notifications are not blocked.

If you would like Citizen notifications to be delivered with sound, make sure the Show Silently setting is unselected.

Note:Even with notifications enabled, the number of notifications you receive will vary depending on your location and what is happening around you. The distance we push each notification is based on a number of factors, including the nature of the incident and the population density of the area.

If you are sure that a Citizen notification occurred within your immediate vicinity, and you did not receive an alert, please reach out to us at [email protected] with:

the date and time of the incident

the phone number attached to your account

When you open Citizen, the map will default to showing you the entirety of the city you are located in or closest to. Citizen currently covers: New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

To instantly zoom into your immediate location and view local incidents, press the locator button on the bottom right corner of the map. To zoom back out to the entire city, press the toggle button again.

As you navigate the map, the list will refresh to show incidents within your map view.

Read more: What's the difference between the Recent and Trending maps?

Citizen takes a number of steps to protect the data and privacy of its users. Read Citizen's current privacy policy here.

Our team works hard to provide consistent updates and conclusions for every incidentreported on Citizen. Unfortunately, we do not receive resolutionsfor allincidents, which is why that information may occasionally be missing from the app.

When an incident is ongoing, regular updates are continuouslyprovided through the data feeds we monitor and we update the app accordingly. Once an incident has been resolved, the conclusion is not always made publicly available.

To switch to another city, open Citizen and go to the Trending tab. You can access the Trending tab by tapping on the second icon in the navigation bar located at the bottom of your screen.

At the top of the page, select the city that is displayed to explore other cities.

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Citizen requires you to enter your phone number when you sign up for the app. This information allows us to verify that you have a working mobile device. Additionally, it allows us to permanently ban users who consistently violate our Terms of Service or engage in behavior such as harassment, discrimination, or unlawful conduct.

We believe this will help make our community safer and stronger.

When you open Citizen, you will be shown a map displaying incidents by recency. The larger red dots represent crimes or emergencies that may still be active or have public safety officers on scene.

How do I explore incidents within a specific area?

You can view incidents that are "trending" by tapping on the second icon in the navigation bar. This map shows some of the most notable or interesting incidents that occurred in the last week. The larger yellow dots represent incidents at the top of the "trending" list.

Read more:

How do I broadcast?

When you are near an incident, the RECORD button will turn red if the incident has been updated within the past 20 minutes.Please remember to keep a safe distance and always remain aware of your surroundings. Citizen does not condone users putting themselves in harms way in order to record videos. User safety is our first priority.

We do not allow users to upload videos from their phones or computers at this time.

While we generate thousands of notifications per day, we only send you the ones that are most relevant to you (normally 1-2 per day, per user).

Which notifications we deem relevant to you is based on a few factors:

Your current location

The severity of the incident in question

Communities you've followed ( read more )

To ensure you're receiving all relevant notifications, please make sure you have granted both location and notification permissions for Citizen.

Citizens mission is to keep people safe and informed.

Citizen is powered by advanced technology that generates immediate alerts about crimes and other emergencies as they occur. When an incident is reported on Citizen, hundreds of nearby users are notified. Those users are able to stay informed with real-time updates from public safety officers, live video from other users near a scene, and details shared through our messaging platform.

We believe all humans deserve safety, and each of us has a role to play in protecting our communities.

Citizen's mission is to keep people safe and informed by using technology responsibly. We ask that you enable your location and notifications permissions so that Citizen can work in the background, even when you're not using the app, to send you real-time, sometimes life-saving crime and safety alerts. This is our utility and purpose.

For help troubleshooting these settings, see How do I enable notifications and location?

The latest version of Citizen is fully compatible with devicesrunning iOS 9 or higher,as well as Android 5.0 (Lollipop) and up.

Citizen was designed for use on mobile phones. You may be able to access Citizenvia your iPad or tablet device, but these devices are not officially supported and you may experience odd behavior.

You can control your profile visibility by making your profile private.

Switching your profile from public to private means no one will be able to see your profile details. Your location, mission statement, and the list of your historical broadcasts on your profile will be hidden from public view. However, your broadcasts will continue to be accessible from the incidents that you've recorded on. Also, your username will continue to appear in connection with your broadcasts and comments.

Switching to a Private Profile

Open your Citizen profile by tapping on the icon located in the far left corner of the navigation bar. Press the toggle button next to Make my profile private. When enabled, the button will appear blue.

To disable, press the toggle button again. It will appear gray when your profile is public.

Citizen's mission is to protect the world. We're dedicated to providing content that helps build a global safety network of people protecting each other. Citizen blocks broadcasts for a few different reasons:

It's unrelated to an incident

It violates our Terms of Service

It has sensitive or explicit content

If a user repeatedly streams inappropriate or irrelevant content, they may be subject to a temporary suspension of broadcast abilities. Users who have their broadcasting abilities revoked will receive a warning from Citizen. Continued abuse may result in permanent banning from the app.

If you'd like to inquire more about your blocked video, please email [email protected].

When you open Citizen, the status bar is located just above the map. The status bar displays the name of the community you are currently in, as well as how many other Citizen users are near you.

The distance used for the nearby user count is based on population density in your geographic area.

How do I access and follow communities?

You can tap on the community displayed in the status bar to access more information and a historical feed of incidents reported in the community.

Read more:

To share an incident, tap on it to view the incident details and then press the "Share" button. You can also screenshot the incident for the share options to appear.

You'll be given the options of sharing the incident to via Facebook, Twitter, or text message. You can also select "Copy Link" to past the link on any platform. This link is compatible on both mobile devices and desktops.

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Citizen sends several types of notifications to keep you safe and informed.

When an incident is reported on Citizen, a notification is sent to users in the immediate area.

Notification distances are determined by population density and incident severity. If an incident appears to be escalating, there's a likeliness that public safety could be affected on a wider scale, or specialized units are called in, the notification distance increases.

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A notification is also sent when a live broadcast is verified. Live broadcasts can help confirm the details of an incident. (Read more about verified videos here.)

If you follow communities, you will receive notifications for escalating and/or confirmed incidents within the boundaries of any community you follow.

Finally, with Inner Circle, youcan receive alerts when friends or family are near major crimes or active emergencies. (Read more about building your Inner Circle .)

You can also receive alerts when someone in your Inner Circle broadcasts live on an incident.

When another user visits your profile, they can view your historical list of broadcasts, along with any other details you may have chosen to add to your profile (unless you've set your profile to private ).If your profile is public, you can choose to hide individual broadcasts from your profile.

Note: This does not hide or remove the video from the incident you recorded on.

Hiding a Broadcast

Open your Citizen profile by tapping on the icon located in the bottom right corner of the navigation bar. You will see your total number of broadcasts.

Click on Broadcasts and find the video you want to hide. Click on the three white dots on the upper right corner of the video. Select Hide Video From Profile. You can follow these steps again to undo this decision and show the video on your profile again.

Deleting a Broadcast

If your broadcast was published on an incident, you can delete it from both the incident and your profile. This action is permanent and cannot be undone.

To delete your broadcast from Citizen, follow these instructions:

Go to your Citizen profile

Click "Broadcasts" > "All Broadcasts"

Find the video you want to hide

Click the three dots in the corner > Select "Delete Video"

Most likely, your broadcast was not long enough for our servers to receive and convert the footage into an acceptable formatfor uploading. Depending on your device's connection strength, this process currently takes between 15 and30 seconds. We planon improving this connection speed in future versions of the app. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience!

If your video was long enough to successfully upload, it is likely that your video wasblocked by our moderation team. Broadcasts can be blocked for the following reasons:

The footage is unrelated to an incident

The footage violates our terms of service

The footage includes sensitive or explicit content

If one of your broadcasts was blocked, this does not mean that your account was blocked; the footage simply didn't meet our broadcast criteria. If this is the case, we hope you will try broadcasting again!

Your Inner Circle is a safety network for your friends and family. When people in your Inner Circle are near a major crime or active emergency, you'll receive an alert.

How do I add or remove people from my Inner Circle?

Once you've granted Citizen access to your contacts, you will be able to see which of your contacts also use Citizen. You can invite any of your contacts from your address book to your Inner Circle with one tap.

If you have contacts who haven't yet signed up for Citizen, you can invite them too. Once they download and create an account, they'll immediately see your Inner Circle request and be able to respond.

Once someone has accepted your Inner Circle request, you can view each other's last known location. You'll be notified about any major incidents that occur nearby each other.