Crime-tracking app Citizen now includes a premium-priced safety help line

The crime-tracking app Citizen is now launching its own emergency response service, promising access to agents who can call 911 or keep tabs on a potentially dangerous situation. Protect, which costs $19.99 per month, builds on a beta program that launched earlier this year. It’s part of a larger — and sometimes controversial — expansion effort at the startup, which has built a crime-mapping system into a live broadcasting platform while experimenting with private security services.

Citizen Protect is essentially a private safety help line that draws on smartphone features like location tracking. When subscribers open the Citizen app, they can hit a button to call a “Protect Agent” via video, audio, or text. Agents are supposed to talk...

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