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City hears briefing on Blockwise, a ZenCity survey tool city staff say is anonymous
Summary
ZenCity's Blockwise platform was presented to the Public Safety and Justice Subcommittee as a two-minute, demographically weighted survey tool to measure community perceptions by precinct. Officials and council members pressed the vendor on how the system reaches underrepresented residents and whether responses are personally identifiable.
ZenCity representatives briefed the Public Safety and Justice Subcommittee on Wednesday on Blockwise, a digital survey tool the company says can deliver short, targeted surveys to residents and generate precinct-level dashboards the Phoenix Police Department could use to measure public sentiment and guide deployment.
Dan Wilson, the city's communications director, introduced the presentation and said the city has used ZenCity software previously to gauge resident sentiment. ZenCity vice president Eyal Halamish told the subcommittee the survey takes about two minutes and is weighted monthly to produce representative samples, allowing staff to "measure and report community trust and sense of safety" at a granular level.
Why it matters: City staff framed Blockwise as a tool to capture community concerns that do not generate 911 calls, such as perceived trust or neighborhood quality-of-life issues. Council members said they are interested in whether the platform can reach populations that are difficult to survey and how results would be shared with elected officials.
ZenCity explained sampling and language access. Barr Asherov, ZenCity's director for law enforcement, said the company uses digital advertising and over-samples groups that are underrepresented in responses, and that the platform supports multiple languages where a language reaches roughly 5% of a jurisdiction. "We typically actually over sample for our partner cities because of the method that we're using," he said.
On privacy and identifiability, Asherov told the subcommittee the system is anonymous. "It's completely anonymous," he said, describing device-location signals used to triage responses to a ZIP code while not providing personally identifiable information to the vendor or the city.
Council members asked for operational details and delivery of results. Councilwoman Gardato asked when Los Angeles began using the platform and what measurable changes the department saw; ZenCity said their LAPD partner has used the data in regular operations, including compstat-style meetings, to monitor trust and adjust deployments. Councilmembers also asked how the city would receive the findings; ZenCity said staff would receive a monthly PDF report and the company would share a dashboard view for city review.
What follows: Council members asked staff to provide more specifics about language coverage, how reports will be delivered to council offices, and safeguards for anonymity. ZenCity officials said they would share sample reports and that the city would decide reporting cadence and distribution. The subcommittee did not take action.
