This little-known iPhone camera trick can make a police altercation a little less scary
(Image credit: www.vecteezy.com, Future)
Getting pulled over by the police can be scary experience, all the more so if there are few other people around. But did you know you can set up your iPhone to have your back? In a popular TikTok video, user @corielynnn shows how a simple but clever iOS shortcut can be used to make your iPhone record and share a potentially tricky altercation with the cops.
The TikTok user explains: "Do you have an Apple iPhone? Do you know about the police shortcut link? You're going to want to know. Buckle in." Once you have downloaded the shortcut link, she says "all you have to do is say 'Hey Siri', I'm being pulled over' and it's going to initiate 18 different reactions at one time."
(Image credit: Basil Kronfli)
The shortcut starts by sending your precise location to a pre-defined contact of your choice, then it activates the phone's front-facing camera to video the situation. To give the impression that the phone is inactive, the shortcut will also dim the phone screen to 0% brightness, along with muting any music you may be playing. The recording from the front-facing camera is also uploaded live to your iCloud or Dropbox account for added security.
Once you've enabled the free shortcut, available here, all you need to do to activate it is to simply say "Siri, I’m getting pulled over", and your iPhone will start recording.
Though the shortcut may be making waves right now, it was actually created back in 2018 by Reddit user Robert Peterson. To get the feature on your iPhone in preparation for if you're ever pulled over, you'll need to:
1. Ensure your iPhone is running iOS 12 or later 2. Get the shortcut here 3. Once downloaded, set up your preferred contact who you’d like to be alerted 4. Of course, for the feature to work best, you'll need your phone mounted in a car phone holder, angled towards you and your driver's side window, so the front facing camera will have the best chance of recording a police officer standing alongside your vehicle.
Ben is the Imaging Labs manager, responsible for all the testing on Digital Camera World and across the entire photography portfolio at Future. Whether he's in the lab testing the sharpness of new lenses, the resolution of the latest image sensors, the zoom range of monster bridge cameras or even the latest camera phones, Ben is our go-to guy for technical insight. He's also the team's man-at-arms when it comes to camera bags, filters, memory cards, and all manner of camera accessories – his lab is a bit like the Batcave of photography! With years of experience trialling and testing kit, he's a human encyclopedia of benchmarks when it comes to recommending the best buys.
