Applications for navigation using the global positioning system (GPS) mistakenly direct their users into dangerous areas, monitored by narcotics in Rio de Janeiro, sometimes putting their lives at risk from gunfire in these densely populated areas. One of the tourists ended his trip to the tourist spots of Rio de Janeiro, at the same time as another was heading out for a walk in the evening, calling a taxi through the Uber app, in this Brazilian city, which is visited by millions of tourists each year.
In December of last year, an Argentine tourist mistakenly fell into one of the dangerous favelas, using his GPS navigation, and was shot dead twice, dying in the hospital. Also, that same month, a woman from São Paulo received a fatal wound in the thigh from gunfire after an Uber driver took her not that route.
In mid-January, a video circulated showing a taxi driver avoiding armed people who did not shoot at him, after his GPS navigation led him into the dangerous area of Cidade Alta. The state's public security minister of Rio de Janeiro, Victor Dus-Santos, stated: 'When someone enters such a place at such speed, a perpetrator, who is in a state of combat readiness and is watching for opponents, shoots without checking the driver's identity.'
