With a spotlight on unjust police action right now (see: The Death of George Floyd), you may have wondered how you—if you’re ever in a tricky situation—might be able to record your interaction with the police. Well, there’s an iPhone shortcut for that. The “I’m getting pulled over” shortcut, developed by Robert Petersen in 2018 and recently updated, is free to download on an iPhone. “By saying, ‘Hey Siri, I’m getting pulled over,’ writes CNN in a recent feature, “the shortcut — which a user must first install themselves — will pause any music that you’re playing, turn down the brightness of your phone, turn on the ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode to block any incoming calls, open up your front-facing camera and start a video recording.” Petersen originally shared the shortcut in a Reddit post, which is here.
Here’s how to install and use the shortcut, via the CNN article:
- Step 1: To set it up, first download the “Shortcuts” app on your iPhone.
- Step 2: Then you have to run another shortcut in the Shortcuts app. If you tap “Gallery” on the bottom right corner, you will see other shortcuts you can run.
- Step 3: Next, go to settings, and scroll down to “Shortcuts.” Tap it and then toggle the “Allow Untrusted Shortcuts” to on.
- Step 4: Open this link in Safari to download the “I’m getting pulled over” shortcut. Tap “Get Shortcut.”
- Step 5: Once it opens, scroll down and tap “Add Untrusted Shortcut.”
- Step 6: Choose a contact(s) for who you would like to send your location and a copy of the video recording to. Then tap done.
Many thanks to Robert Petersen for developing and updating this shortcut, which can be a tool of justice in a system that is lacking it. “I just wanted a way for anyone to have proof of their version of events in the unlikely scenario that something unexpected happens during a police interaction,” Petersen told CNN affiliate KCTV last year. “And if 1 in 10,000 people find my shortcut useful at all I’d be glad.”
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