AI-Powered Body Cams Give Cops the Power to Google Everything They See - Vocativ
Where police use body cams, it’s generally out in public, where literally anyone can record. First Amendment decisions with massive supportive case law. But given police powers we as citizens may choose to insist rules are promulgated. Rules that could draw sharp lines about how when and why this footage can be used. How evidence rules will work. How they can use the video, essentially public area surveillance data legally speaking.
How creepy is this to you?
Searchable video will also have major implications for civilian privacy, especially since there are no federal laws preventing police from trawling through databases to track people en masse.
Taser has previously expressed interest in adding face recognition capabilities to its body camera systems. A Department of Justice study published last year also found that at least nine different body camera manufacturers either currently support face recognition in their products or have the ability to add it later. And according to a recent Georgetown University Law report, roughly half of all American adults have been entered into a law enforcement face recognition database, meaning there’s decent chance that any random person walking down the street can be identified and tracked in secret by a camera-equipped cop.
A Taser representative told Vocativ that while Dextro’s computer vision technology will allow Taser’s law enforcement customers to detect faces for the purpose of redacting them from videos, it does not currently support face recognition.
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