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Founders pitch Block Watch app; residents press on verification, profiling and 311 integration
Summary
Two student founders demonstrated Block Watch, a neighborhood alert app with user‑generated reports and optional premium features; residents and city staff questioned user verification, data retention, risks of profiling, moderation and whether the app would divert reports from official 311/911 channels.
Grant Iverson and his co‑founder Nick demonstrated Block Watch, an app that allows users to watch specific areas and post short, user‑generated safety alerts for neighbors. The founders described core free features (user alerts and local maps) and a premium tier that adds police‑scanner feed alerts and sex‑offender map overlays; they said alerts expire (they plan automatic deletion when alerts become irrelevant) and that they would remove users who repeatedly post false information.
Residents and staff asked detailed questions about data collection, user verification, moderation, safeguards against racial or homeless‑status profiling, and how the app would interact with the city’s 311 service. A Provo employee asked whether users would be nudged to report infrastructure issues (downed trees or power lines) to 311 instead of posting to the app; founders said serious alerts would prompt users to call 911 and that they were working to add verification and moderation tools and community outreach (block‑party events) to build trust.
Multiple attendees cautioned that neighborhood reporting apps can devolve into harassment or inaccurate profiling if not designed with clear verification and accountability; several suggested that integration with official sources (police data, city 311) and visible community verification would reduce misuse. The founders said the app is newly live on iOS and Android in limited deployment and asked for local feedback and pilots with apartment communities.
The discussion concluded without a formal action. The founders offered to sponsor local block‑party outreach and to work with neighborhood groups and city staff on verification and escalation procedures.
