Sex offender registries allow parents to search for predators who may live near their home. But what happens when you're out at the playground?
As Apple likes to say, there's an app for that.
It's called Offender Locator. The $1.99 application combines the iPhone's GPS and Internet capabilities with data from sex offender registries across the nation.
You don't have to know where you are because the phone already has your location and passes it along to Offender Locator. How many parents know the exact street address of their children's playground?
The program uses that information to create a map of sex offenders registered nearby. In the case of one Cincinnati park, we found eight sex offenders within a mile of the park boundaries. Yet parents played with their children blissfully unaware there were several predators registered in the area.
The application is easy, but it isn't fool proof. The information is not pulled from government registries in real time. Weeks may pass between downloads to the company's servers. We found one page of sex offenders displayed where five out of eight addresses were out of date. That was close to a halfway house where there's a lot of turnover.
But the real power of the application is the ability to put photographs of actual sex offenders in the hands of parents where and when they need them most. If you click on a name in the list, the offender's mug shot appears with a description and their criminal record.
Tonight on 9News at 6 p.m., Brendan Keefe will show you how the iPhone Offender Locator works.
