New York City joins ‘Citizen’ to push residents public safety alerts

New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Sunday announced the city is opening an account on Citizen, a personal safety app that pushes to users alerts about incidents happening near where they live.

The new account will provide residents with real-time, verified updates from city agencies including the NYPD, FDNY and NYC Emergency Management. The app uses geo-targeted push notifications to deliver alerts to residents by neighborhood, ZIP code or borough, including weather emergencies, crime trends and scam warnings.

“A huge part of building a safer city is ensuring New Yorkers have the information they need,” Adams said in the announcement. “Whether it’s a heat emergency, a flood warning, a fire or crime, our new ‘NYC Public Safey’ account on Citizen will keep New Yorkers informed on threats and how their city government is working to keep them safe.”

In addition to public safety alerts, city agencies will also have access to a dashboard that allows them to view and download incident videos submitted by Citizen app users, providing footage for investigations or emergency reviews.