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Companies like Flock and Axon will sell suites of cameras, license plate readers, gunshot detectors and drone sensors, and then provide AI tools to understand the ocean of that data (schmoosing was seen among the chiefs selling at countless AI-Police launches and expositions at last year’s meeting). The department says these technologies will help save time, ease executive shortages and reduce response times.
They sound like great goals, but this adoption pace raises an obvious question: Who makes the rules here? When does AI use go from efficiency to monitoring?
In some cases, AI-powered police technology has already driven wedges between the department and the communities they serve. When police in Chula Vista, California became the first in the country to receive a special exemption from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly drones further than usual, they said the drones would be deployed to solve crimes and people would be able to help them early in emergencies. They had some success.
However, the department has also been sued by a local media outlet claiming it had abolished its promise to release footage of the drone, with residents saying I said The drone rings overhead and feels like an invasion of privacy. Research found that these drones are deployed more frequently in poor areas and due to small issues like loud music.
Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at ACLU, says there is no comprehensive federal law governing how local police departments employ technologies like the tracking software I wrote. Departments usually have the room to try first and see how the community reacts after the facts. (Veritone, which makes the tool I wrote, said that it is not yet clear how it is being deployed by the police, so I cannot use it to name or connect with me).