New Legal Advice App for Smartphones

http://findlaw.ca/news/news-id-9078/

A new smartphone app is available that provides legal advice to people who are stopped and questioned by the police randomly. The application also features a recording option so that the encounter can be videotaped for protection and sent to a remote server.

The advice comes by way of a series of brief questions and answers. After providing the same, it offers talking points and advice on what information you must provide. "If you are not being arrested or detained, then you are not required to show ID," the app states.

Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash said officers are under unprecedented scrutiny due to changing technology. The app is part of that change, he said. "I don't see it as provocative," Pugash said. "As long as the public doesn't interfere in a police officer trying to do his or her job, if they're recording it, they're entitled to do that."

Alvin Curling, the only black person to serve as Speaker of the Ontario legislature, said in a statement that legal-rights education is "essential to a working democracy."