Civil Rights Attorney Creates App to Stop Police from Erasing Video
Online, January 13, 2014 (Newswire.com) - Chicago civil rights attorney Basileios J. Foutris got tired of getting phone calls from potential clients who captured footage of police misconduct only to have their cell phones taken by the cops. Even if the phones were returned, the footage was always erased. After he got three calls like this in the same day, he decided to do something about it. He developed an app that sends footage directly to Dropbox (without pushing buttons, etc.) for rapid permanent preservation.
The app is called Fi-Vo Film and it can be downloaded on an Android or iPhone and will prevent the destruction of the video. The app is simple in execution. By opening the app, the user is taken directly to the video function of the phone. The phone immediately starts recording - there is no need to hit the record button. As the video is taken, it is streamed live to the user's Dropbox account (the user will be directed to Dropbox to create or sync to a free Dropbox account when the app is downloaded). If the video is deleted from the phone, or if the phone itself is destroyed, it doesn't matter - the video survives on the Dropbox account.
"This is a common problem," said Foutris. "It's not surprising that the police do not want to be recorded when they are violating someone's constitutional rights. This app levels the playing field - it will no longer be the police's word versus the victim's word because Fi-Vo Film prevents destruction of the video," explained Foutris.
While this app was designed to prevent police from destroying evidence of their misconduct, the app itself has limitless uses. For instance, users do not ever have to worry that their video footage will be lost forever due to a failure to manually back-up a recording if their phone is lost, stolen or destroyed. By recording any event through the app, users insure that their video will be preserved without having to do anything else.
The app can be downloaded directly from the google or apple app stores. Also, a link is provided to those stores from Fi-Vo Film's website: www.fivofilm.com.
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