Resource Spotlight: Pinged by Badge Apps

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Resource Spotlight

Badge Apps was created by Aaron Benzick. Aaron is a seasoned police detective with over two decades of dedicated service within a suburban law enforcement agency in northern Texas, possesses a robust technical foundation that extends beyond the realm of law enforcement. This unique blend of expertise has significantly enhanced his innovative problem-solving methods in the field of law enforcement, resulting in the successful identification and capture of multiple suspects in intricate criminal investigations and missing persons cases.

I was able to finally have the ability to use this tool for a case I was working this week and it performed flawlessly. What this tool does is it allows you to either forward your ping returns from the cell phone provider to badge apps, and the application immediately puts it into your Ping account with badge apps and the location shows up right in the companion application on your phone. The other nice feature is that you have the ability to share the pings with other members of your team if they have an account just by searching for them via email.

How to Setup

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01

Register an account with Badge Apps

Before you download the application to your phone, you must first create an account with badgeapps.com
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02

Download the application to your phone

Once your account has been approved, download the "Pinged" app by badge apps in your application store (iOS/ Google Play)
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03

Send your pings to Badge Apps

This can be done in one of two ways. Either tell the carrier (AT&T/ Verizon/ T-Mobile) to email the pings to "Pings@badgeapps.com" or create a rule in your work email asking your inbox to forward all the pings to Badge Apps. I have used both and they each worked flawlessly. Badge Apps also has a great "How to" on their site as well.
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04

Register your Ping to your account in the app

You can register your ping in the main menu of the app. To register your ping all you have to do is submit your device ID that is provided by the carrier (Example Verizon: ####4321)
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05

View your Pings to Badge Apps.

Now you can view your pings on a map in real time. You can even select the car icon and get turn by turn directions to the location. These locations can also be shared among team members with the push of a button.
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06

Share Pings in Real Time with teammates

You can invite other teammates to view your pings live inside their apps as well just by adding their email account to the device details on the pings. You can also set a case number for your pings so you can have multiple pings going at once and you won't get confused.
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07

Archived Report

Once you are done with your ping, click archive device in the Device Settings on your app. You will then receive a download to your email with all of your pings laid out in a Google Earth Map that is fully interactive and can be used for court. 



Conclusion

I am always astounded at the ingenuity and class within the law enforcement community. Aaron has done an amazing job creating this application and then to offer it up for free use is just amazing. If your team is not using this for their pings and surveillance you are really doing things the hard way. I whole heartedly recommend you give Pinged by Badge Apps a try on your next mobile surveillance. 
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