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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill used money intended for COVID relief to create an app that allows people to report potential safety violations on campus and in the surrounding community.

The “SaferWays” application encourages people to report violations on campus, such as a lack of social distancing and non-mask usage. Because the app updates in real-time, law enforcement or university administrators could use the app to pinpoint where to enforce infractions.

Funding for the app came from “the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory” at the public university, “with funding from the North Carolina Coronavirus Relief Fund established and appropriated by the North Carolina General Assembly,” according to the app’s website.

This app raises privacy concerns, according to Kimberly Hermann, the general counsel for the Southeastern Legal Foundation.

“Apps that ask students to report other students-even if not by name-for not wearing masks or for standing closer than 6 feet, are simply the newest version of the tattle-tale reports that popped up on college campuses last August,” Hermann told The College Fix via email.

Southeastern Legal has sent a number of letters to universities warning them about potential legal problems with their coronavirus guidelines.

She told The Fix that “the Big Brother reporting encouraged by these new apps will no doubt result in chilled speech and discriminatory enforcement.”

“The anonymity built into these apps does not fix the potential for constitutional violations,” Hermann said. “Reports may be used in real time to silence students and to cherry pick students for disciplinary action.”

Her organization has seen this “over and over again with these college tattle-tale policies.”

App creator disputes privacy concerns...

University encourages people to call police if they see COVID violations

The university provided similar answers, although they still said it encourages people to report COVID violations. ...

However, university officials “encourage our community to call the police immediately…if they witness activities that are not in compliance with COVID-19 Community Standards.” The email said “incidents are more challenging to investigate after they occur, or refer  behavior to Student Conduct.”

Neither Ribisl nor university officials would say what safeguards are in place to ensure administrators and the police do not use the app to punish students.