Sunday, April 22, 2018

"Be My Eyes"

I was recently talking with a friend who is vision impaired. She told me about talking with people all over the world on an app called "Be My Eyes". I wasn't sure at first what its use was, but as she continued, I realized that she uses her smartphone to provide a picture or video to a volunteer whom she contacts through the app, and they can read what is on the item to her via a voice connection.
https://www.bemyeyes.com/

In the introductory material:
Thank you for joining the Be My Eyes community, connecting bind and visually impaired with sighted helpers from around the world via live video.

My friend shared that another lady that she knew using the service had lost her keys. She used the app and was showing video of her home/floor to the sighted volunteer. The sighted volunteer said, "Stop, right there, down by your left foot..." and sure enough, her keys were there and he had helped her find her keys!

As a visually impaired or blind person using the service, you would need to be cautious not to include information in the video that would disclose private information - your social security number, driver's license number, physical address, etc. As a sighted volunteer, I'm not releasing as much of my privacy, but the audio would include my voice, and the app does reserve the right to collect information about how the app is used for the purposes of improving it. They also point out that there may be those who abuse the service, and ask that those instances be reported if witnessed.

The good news is - there are about 15 times as many volunteers as blind and low vision users! The information on the app says that they can generally pair a request with a volunteer within 30 seconds. When a blind or low vision person requests assistance, they send out a notification to several volunteers (usually 10) - the first one who is available and answers the call will be connected.

Pretty cool, huh?

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