Police in Australia are using CarPlay in an interesting way

Drivers love Apple CarPlay because it enables safe interaction with iPhone apps through the car’s built-in screen. It turns out police in Australia are benefiting from CarPlay for a whole other safety purpose.

Law enforcement vehicles in Western Australia are using CarPlay to help identify vehicles of interest without the need for specialized equipment inside the car. Here’s how it works:

Western Australia Police Force (WA Police Force) is conducting faster and better-informed investigations and road policing throughout the state through the addition of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) capability within Motorola Solutions’ PSCore mobile application.

The expanded app has been deployed in more than 80 police vehicles and operates ANPR seamlessly via Apple CarPlay, making it simple to use while negating the need for additional equipment including screens and brackets. […]

Through continued development and innovation, the PSCore mobile app has provided WA Police Force with greater capabilities to respond to a wider variety of incidents including family violence incidents. This capability has since been automated to publish family violence reports in real-time to the Department of Communities, accelerating referrals to support agencies for victims while police are in attendance at the scene.

Policing is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of CarPlay, but it makes sense that CarPlay should be a part of a digital policing strategy. You can learn more about PSCore here.