Citizen, an app that lets users monitor crime and breaking incidents in real-time, leaked the home address of pop superstar Billie Eilish, according to Vice.
On Thursday night, the app published the specific home address of Elish in Los Angeles' Highland Park neighborhood.
A push notification was sent to 178,000 people informing them of an attempted burglary at Eilish's address. Based on the metrics that Citizen shows its users, nearly 78,000 people viewed the address.
Thousands of People Were Notified of Billie Eilish Address
On Thursday night, an incident in Highland Park, California was reported at 9:15 p.m. PST. After the police received a 911 call that there is a residential burglary, a notification was sent out on the Citizen app.
According to Gizmodo, the call was made by the home's housekeeper, who was not at home during that time but received an alert from the device showing the suspect on camera.
After 15 minutes, the police were able to apprehend the suspect. According to reports, the suspect fought with law enforcement before he was taken into custody.
Shortly after the incident, the police revealed the identity of the homeowner to be Eilish's family home.
By that time, thousands of people already received and viewed the push notification containing the home address of Eilish.
However, on Friday morning, the Citizen app suddenly changed the address of the incident. The app removed the actual address and instead only include the cross streets.
As per Gizmodo, at 7:24 a.m. PST, the app notes that "the address reported for this incident has changed to Meridian St & N Avenue 57."
Citizen's Revelation of a Celebrity's Address is Alarming
While it is not difficult to find celebrity addresses on the Internet, it is still alarming that the Citizen app was able to actively identify the address of a popular celebrity. Moreover, it notified 178,000 users of that address.
Based on Citizen's privacy policy, the app will make mentions of location data but with claims of storing personal data to "as short a duration as possible." However, this only applies to app users, and not those involved with crimes reported on the app.
The ability for Citizen to reveal home addresses on its platform does set an alarm, particularly for a public figure like Eilish.
In the past, the homes of celebrities such as Sandra Bullock, Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift, and Simon Cowell have all been reportedly broken into.
With incidents like this, where a celebrity's address is revealed to thousands of people, stalkers and criminals might break into the homes of these popular people. It's a potentially destructive move from Citizen.
Citizen was launched as Vigilante in 2016. During that time, Apple quickly pulled the title from the App Store out of concerns that it might encourage users to involve themselves in dangerous situations.
Later on, the app rebranded itself as Citizen with a new focus on safety. With the rebranding, Apple decided to welcome the app.
The app then began advising users to avoid incidents in progress. In addition, it is also providing tools to help people who were caught in a dangerous situation.
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