The Download: crime app concerns, and helpful AI

Members of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community in the US are living through a period of ongoing race-based attacks--most recently in nearby Half Moon Bay. Many of them feel that Citizen, a hyperlocal app that allows users to report and follow notifications of nearby crimes, is one of their best means of protection. But the app has a checkered history. Citizen has long been criticized for amplifying paranoia around crime. Now that the company is actively trying to recruit users of Asian descent in the Bay Area, many of whom are elderly, experts are worried the app could actually make things worse.