This location-based app helps young Iranians avoid ‘morality police’ by Aleks Buczkowski.
From the post:
Many young Iranians are pretty liberated guys. They like to party and wear fancy clothes but they happened to live in a country where it’s prohibited. There is special police force dedicated to ensuring Iranians follow strict rules on clothing and conduct, called the Gasht-e-Ershad (or Guidance Patrol, commonly known as the “morality police”). Part of their activities include setting up checkpoints around cities and randomly inspecting vehicles driving by.
Now there is a way to avoid the Ershad controls. An anonymous team of Iranian developers have come up with a crowdsource app that allow users marking risky spots on the city map to help others avoid it. Something like Waze but for a much different purpose.
The Gershad app is pretty simple and easy to use. Users can mark where they encounter the “morality police”. The data is added to a database and visualised on a map. The more reports in one place, the bolder the warning on the map. When the number decreases, the alert will fade gradually from the map. Simple as it is.
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Sounds quite adaptable to tracking police, FBI agents, narcs, etc. in modern urban environments.
Over time, with enough reports, patterns for police patrols would emerge from the data.
Enjoy!