COLORADO SPRINGS - Another proof-positive to make sure you don’t believe everything you read on the internet or on your phone. I did some research on a popular iPhone application that’s called the Offender Locator. You load it on your phone, set a location and within a mile you find out which registered sex offenders are living near you. I took this app for a spin and discovered it had some flaws.
I used the free app that only allows you to get 10 offender addresses. Colorado Springs Police Sgt. Bill Dehart researched the ten names that I got back from the Offender Locater. Of the 10, six addresses of the people on the Offender Locater were wrong. Another surprising revelation of the list one of the offenders was dead and had been for a year, others moved and another was in jail.
The Colorado Springs Police Department had the right information about all these registered sex offenders, Offender Locator did not.
I contacted Offender Locator CEO, Trip Wakefield, to make sense of the discrepancies. He told me that his company constantly updates their information.
“There are 50 states, it’s not an easy task to keep it updated.” Wakefield added, “That’s why if you read our terms and conditions it spells it out clearly, this is more of a guide.”
At first Wakefield and another company executive didn’t know where the information was coming from during my conversations with them. I asked specifically if it was from law enforcement. Both told me it was from something they referred to as a “registry.” I kept pressing and finally one day before my story aired, I received an email that said the information was from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Wakefield added in the email, “Colorado is just one of the states that is being updated and by Friday, November 20th it will be the freshest state we have on record.”
I checked the CBI site and the iPhone app Thursday night to see if there was still any discrepancy. Previously, there were six names wrong on the Offender Locator a week ago when I checked. As of right now, four of them are still on the iPhone app including the man who died. The CBI site has all the names right.
You can always get the most current Registered Sex Offender lists in your area.
Click here for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation Website
