App wrongfully labeled Cape Coral man's home as sex offender residence

11-3-15 Florida:

CAPE CORAL, Fla. -- A Cape Coral man is upset with some wrong public information out there saying his home is housing a sex offender.

Donald Montgomery was shocked to find out his home was listed as one where a sex offender lives on the Ping4 app. The app notifies the public on safety alerts partners with the Cape Coral Police Department.

Montgomery found out when checking the app after seeing a story on tracking sex offenders on FOX4. He said when he pulled up his address to see what sex offenders lived in the neighborhood, he was stunned.

"Looked at our neighborhood and found that our address of our home was listed as a registered sex offender. We were shocked when we went to the app and saw our address listed on that app as being the home of registered sex offenders," said Montgomery.

To undo the red mark on his home shown on the app's map, he called Ping4, who admitted it was old info. A sex offender lived there before Donald did.

FOX 4 asked Cape Coral police how they missed it too.

"Looks like we had an old data point that was still left in the database that the company downloaded from the state," said Dana Coston of the Cape Coral Police Department," Sgt. Dana Coston said.

Coston says this is the first time he's ever heard of something like this happening but adds the app's main purpose is to send you public safety alerts.

"The feature that they include for Ping4 for sex offenders is a secondary feature for what our primary use for that is," Sgt. Coston said. ..Source.. by Malcolm Johnson