Citizen: Local Safety Alerts Ratings and Reviews

I liked that if I heard sirens I could open up the app to see what was going on. However, recently the app has been updated to basically reduce the amount of local information that’s brought to users. Before the update, I could scroll through a long list of incidents in the area and see dozens of dots throughout my community. Now I only see a handful of incidents in my local area. There is a long list of trending incidents such as… a mudslide in Beverly Hills? An incident in the Bronx? Both of which are several hundred miles away from me?? I don’t understand why the list of “trending incidents” from cities that aren’t even remotely close to my own is longer than the list of incidents in my own city, or why I can even see those incidents in the first place. If I was connected to people who live in those cities, maybe that would make sense, but I don’t really care about a two-vehicle collision that happened on an interstate in Chicago. If it’s significant enough, I’ll see it in the news.

If they change the app back to the way it was, it would be really helpful if there was a way to sort the list of incidents, such as by most recent or by proximity. The list of incidents didn’t seem to be in any particular order and you’d have to comb through them to find what was happening in the last few minutes versus incidents that occurred several hours ago.

I’ve had this app for a few years now, and I really enjoyed it previously. Unfortunately, every single time I open this app now, I'm bombarded with subscription notices. If you are not paying for this app, you can't really get access to much of anything. Some alerts are free, but many alerts require a paid subscription to even see what the incident is. On the incidents which are free, if you listen or watch any of the videos some stop midway and tell you that you cannot finish the recording unless you upgrade your subscription. What's the point of having a "free app," if I then have to pay to find out what the incident is? I might as well not have the app! Other problems with the application is the false alerts and unmonitored comments. The comments most of the time are rude; which often range between blaming the homeless or victims in incidences. There's no monitoring comments... beside the "don't be rude" warning you get when opening the chat box.
There's a number of alerts that come through that aren't verified. Verified alerts are part of the subscription, so you very likely will get false alerts. This app relies heavily on its users as it's sources, yet turns around and makes you pay for the content they aren't paying for themselves. For a free application that was meant to let citizens know of major incidents happening around them for their safety, it sure feels like they have prioritized their own pockets before the users.

I've had this app for a couple of years now, and I really enjoyed it previously. Unfortunately, every single time I open this app now, I'm bombarded with subscription notices. If you are not paying for this app, you can't really get access to much of anything. Some alerts are free, but many alerts require a paid subscription to even see what the incident is. On the incidents which are free, if you listen or watch any of the videos some stop midway and tell you that you cannot finish the recording unless you upgrade your subscription. What's the point of having a "free app," if I then have to pay to find out what the incident is? I might as well not have the app! Other problems with the application is the false alerts and unmonitored comments. The comments most of the time are rude; which often range between blaming the homeless or victims in incidences. There's no monitoring comments... beside the "don't be rude" warning you get when opening the chat box. There's a number of alerts that come through that aren't verified. Verified alerts are part of the subscription, so you very likely will get false alerts. This app relies heavily on its users as it's sources, yet turns around and makes you pay for the content they aren't paying for themselves. For a free application that was meant to let citizens know of major incidents happening around them for their safety, it sure feels like they have prioritized their own pockets before the users.

I've had this app for over a year now, and I really enjoyed it previously. Unfortunately, every single time open this app now, I'm bombarded with subscription notices. If you are not paying for this app, you can't really get access to much of anything. Some alerts are free, but many alerts require a paid subscription to even see what the incident is. On the incidents which are free, if you listen or watch any of the videos some stop midway and tell you that you cannot finish the recording unless you upgrade your subscription. What's the point of having a "free app," if I then have to pay to find out what the incident is? I might as well not have the app! Other problems with the application is the false alerts and unmonitored comments. The comments most of the time are rude; which often range between blaming the homeless or victims in incidences. There's no monitoring comments... beside the "don't be rude" warning you get when opening the chat box. There's a number of alerts that come through that aren't verified. Verified alerts are part of the subscription, so you very likely will get false alerts. This app relies heavily on its users as it's sources, yet turns around and makes you pay for the content they aren't paving for themselves. For a free application that was meant to let citizens know of major incidents happening around them for their safety, it sure feels like they have prioritized their own pockets before the users.

To begin with, I use citizen in the LA region, this is a nice app to have on hand just cause theres helpful reference of alerts in my area. Great examples would be of Covid alerts and other Major Event alerts. First problem that comes up is constant and inconsistent changes to parts of the app. Layouts will be different (sometimes from alert to a different alert) and glitchy. I dont mind redesigns, but why is glitchy and different each time in small shorts-pans. I rather the app gets no changes for a while and comes out with a less buggy update. Second of is user to user interaction, why have replies if there is no way to revisit quickly to see if someones reply. Furthermore, the comments section itself are very buggy. And now lastly, the lack of moderation, blatantly bigoted, racist, homophobic, hateful rhetoric and other harmful comments are made constantly on it. And it flies. Its hard to continually keep reporting comments if theres so many, and the UI constantly bugs out. (To Note: I have an iPhone 14 with the latest IOS and most current update of the Citizen app) I want citizen to be aware of the type of audience they’re attracting and to take time into their app as a whole. Please invest more into the programming staff and make this app better. Right now as it stands, not much is keeping me here. And it’s unfortunate because it has potential.

I’ve had this app for a while, even convinced many others to download it for themselves. It used to be worth it. Slowly they’ve added more and more “subscription” features but at the beginning they didn’t affect the free and standard safety features of the app. It used to be a separate section, but now the “subscription” has taken over the whole thing. I still get notifications of reported incidents nearby but beyond that notification on my lock screen, I won’t ever find the report again. When I search my area for it, the only incidents that come up are from prior weeks or months and you need the subscription to even view them. I’m not even looking for the weeks old incidents anyhow, let alone want to pay for them. As a single female in a big city, this app used to help me and make me feel safe. Now it’s pointless and doesn’t help me at all. I can’t look up recent incidents in my area without having to pay for my own public safety, and it makes me less inclined to help out others in my area if something is happening nearby. If you want to have a subscription section, go for it, but don’t let it affect the whole interface of the app. Keep them separate. Make your money or lose your users and integrity? Which one holds more value to you?

I’ve used Citizen for probably five years now. But as they continue to push on ways to get paid, they have neglected core functionality. Specifically, there is a setting to dictate the radius of which you expect to be notified of activities/crime. Mine is set to 2.5 miles. As in, alert me to any activity 2.5 miles or closer. This simply does not work. I live in the greater Los Angeles area, and I get notifications from all over. Of course I feel awful about the barricaded suspect shooting at police, or the missing dogs, or the elderly person gone missing three days ago. But when it’s 20 or 25 miles away, where I can not help, nor am I impacted directly, these alerts do nothing other than stress me out. They put a pay wall around this notification setting. And seemingly while doing so, they broke its functionality. I try to slide it up or down, am told I need to get premium, and it resets back to 2.5 miles. If only it respected the 2.5 miles I would be all set, but instead I’m hearing about a crimes two hours away. I still use the app, but I turned off all notifications. I don’t need my Apple Watch going off every 10 minutes for incidents that simply are not relevant to my area or my family. I emailed their support and received no response. Unfortunate.

I just installed this app about 30 mins ago and was immediately confronted with subscribing to Citizen’s premium service. It was then suggested that I allow access to my contacts so that I could add my Emergency contacts, which meant I would be sending invites to join Citizen to each contact I would add (given they do not already use Citizen). Last but not least, I was warned that I need to enable & allow the app to always allow access to my phone’s location. I then decided to look around and saw that there was no notification 
fence to limit a certain area of interest, for example 1.4 mile radius. I closed the app & when I later opened it, I was again met with being asked to subscribe to the premium service. It was then I did a web search on the legitimacy of this app & though this app is legitimate, it is not officially supported by official sources & notifications are driven by employees of Citizen listening & combing through police scanners, as well as crowd-sourced. This is troubling for me b/c without official support, there is a potential for false alerts b/c of the lack of oversight (verification) which in turn is extremely dangerous in today’s society. I will not be using this app for this reason in addition to the constant push for the premium service. Until this app is officially supported I cannot recommend this app.

As a security officer who’s always getting notifications of gunman literally a blocks away, I hate that I can’t hear the police say the description of the shooter/ gun flasher because there’s a report a half city block from me that he’s on the loose targeting security officers…idk what he looks like because you request us to pay for something that really shouldn’t require payment. Do you need to pay to scroll the news? No you don’t. Do I have to pay a police officer to tell me the description of a criminal? No I don’t because they’re providing a public service and aren’t greedy. They actually want to help. So instead of making us pay for this, actually create something that you can make money off of because at this point you’re just saving the rich who can afford this which is probably 20% of your downloads and 60% of your revenue. Making it free will help/ save people. What am I going to do with hearing only 3 seconds of the dispatch recording huh? That’s enough time to say “suspect” and that’s it. Get off your high horse, realize you won’t be able to sell this app ever because you don’t want to help people you just want to tease them for money. But whatever, right? Who cares if this gunman comes to kill me, right? You’re obviously on the line between supporting people and criminals.

I downloaded this app months ago and barely used it. I’ve worked in public safety and love to keep up with what’s going on in my area so thought I give it a try. I’ve had police scanner apps and others including my personal favorite, Pulse Point. Well the other day I got a Citizen notification for a traffic Crash 1.5miles away. So I naturally go on pulse point to listen to the local FD. Pulse point allows you to see in real time what calls FDA are on and even listen to the scanner feeds. To my believe there wasn’t any reported accident! Hmm strange but didn’t think anything of it. Well now the last few days I’ve been getting accident notifications however I’m unable to verify it on Pulse point. Nothing! So either Citizen app are creating false reports to keep me engaged on the app or there’s a serious flaw in the app. Which gets me into the next flaw. You have to pay a ridiculous amount a month to “feel safe” with this app even tho it’s not accurate. Like others have said you’re better off looking on social media or having the ring app. Note pulse point is only for FDs so it doesn’t have police info but it was the app I used to fact check Citizens app. So if your still looking for a app that shows police activity you’ll need to keep searching because citizens app is not it.