An AI Surveillance Company is Watching Utah (vice.com) 39
An anonymous reader quotes Motherboard:
The state of Utah has given an artificial intelligence company real-time access to state traffic cameras, CCTV and "public safety" cameras, 911 emergency systems, location data for state-owned vehicles, and other sensitive data. The company, called Banjo, says that it's combining this data with information collected from social media, satellites, and other apps, and claims its algorithms "detect anomalies" in the real world.
The lofty goal of Banjo's system is to alert law enforcement of crimes as they happen. It claims it does this while somehow stripping all personal data from the system, allowing it to help cops without putting anyone's privacy at risk. As with other algorithmic crime systems, there is little public oversight or information about how, exactly, the system determines what is worth alerting cops to.
In its pitches to prospective clients, Banjo promises its technology, called "Live Time Intelligence," can identify, and potentially help police solve, an incredible variety of crimes in real-time. Banjo says its AI can help police solve child kidnapping cases "in seconds," identify active shooter situations as they happen, or potentially send an alert when there's a traffic accident, airbag deployment, fire, or a car is driving the wrong way down the road. Banjo says it has "a solution for homelessness" and can help with the opioid epidemic by detecting "opioid events." It offers "artificial intelligence processing" of state-owned audio sensors that "include but may not be limited to speech recognition and natural language processing" as well as automatic scene detection, object recognition, and vehicle detection on real-time video footage pulled in from Utah's cameras.
In July, Banjo signed a five-year, $20.7 million contract with Utah that gives the company unprecedented access to data the state collects. Banjo's pitch to state and local agencies is that the more data that's fed into it, the better its product will work... Privacy experts are unsure how Banjo can be doing anything other than applying machine learning to a terrifying amount of data to create a persistent panopticon pointed at everyone who lives in Utah.
Banjo now has direct, real-time access to the thousands of traffic cameras in Utah, and is plugged into 911 systems across the state.
The lofty goal of Banjo's system is to alert law enforcement of crimes as they happen. It claims it does this while somehow stripping all personal data from the system, allowing it to help cops without putting anyone's privacy at risk. As with other algorithmic crime systems, there is little public oversight or information about how, exactly, the system determines what is worth alerting cops to.
In its pitches to prospective clients, Banjo promises its technology, called "Live Time Intelligence," can identify, and potentially help police solve, an incredible variety of crimes in real-time. Banjo says its AI can help police solve child kidnapping cases "in seconds," identify active shooter situations as they happen, or potentially send an alert when there's a traffic accident, airbag deployment, fire, or a car is driving the wrong way down the road. Banjo says it has "a solution for homelessness" and can help with the opioid epidemic by detecting "opioid events." It offers "artificial intelligence processing" of state-owned audio sensors that "include but may not be limited to speech recognition and natural language processing" as well as automatic scene detection, object recognition, and vehicle detection on real-time video footage pulled in from Utah's cameras.
In July, Banjo signed a five-year, $20.7 million contract with Utah that gives the company unprecedented access to data the state collects. Banjo's pitch to state and local agencies is that the more data that's fed into it, the better its product will work... Privacy experts are unsure how Banjo can be doing anything other than applying machine learning to a terrifying amount of data to create a persistent panopticon pointed at everyone who lives in Utah.
Banjo now has direct, real-time access to the thousands of traffic cameras in Utah, and is plugged into 911 systems across the state.
Great and Amazing (Score:2)
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As for solving crimes in seconds does 10e9 seconds count as seconds?
In proper English, if something can be "done in seconds" it will be done in more than one but less than 120 seconds.
If something takes 120 seconds or more, you should say "done in minutes".
If something takes 10e9 seconds, you should say "three centuries".
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We have live time intelligence when there is a grunt looking at the camera,
Actually, no. I work in physical security, and testing has shown that one person can view as many as a dozen cameras for perhaps a max of 20 minutes. After that their attention is gone until they take a 15 or more minute break. Those walls of cameras that you see in the movies where action on a single screen launches the guards into action? That doesn't really happen.
Better start goose-stepping *precisely*. (Score:2)
Otherwise you might end up being an "anomaly".
Ceausescu's Romania (Score:5, Interesting)
In Ceausescu's Romania you could be reported to authorities for having the wrong facial expression in public, especially if it was an event attended by the dear leader himself. Naturally they smiled for him whenever seeing him, right up until the day they shot him.
Imagine what that kind of regime would have been able to accomplish with this kind of technology...
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Imagine what that kind of regime would have been able to accomplish with this kind of technology...
I imagine he would have been shot much earlier.
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In a way I do kinda like this answer
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Imagine what Joseph Smith could have done with this.
It probably would have immediately been extended into all the followers' bedrooms.
Lots of surveillance watching roads (Score:3)
If you think this company is the only one watching public roads, you have to be insane.
If nothing else what about the guys who are out on street corners much of the day... they are also observe you.
There are also countless private web cameras overlooking streets, many public as well.
Remember kids: There is no privacy in public, and any expectation of such is doomed to disappoint.
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Remember kids: There is no privacy in public, and any expectation of such is doomed to disappoint.
It's a minority outlier position to believe just because someone can be observed in public it ought to be ok for anyone and everyone to surveille individuals or entire populations building detailed dossiers on everyone's movements.
--
I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship.
Do you also protest snow, or rain? (Score:2)
It's a minority outlier position to believe just because someone can be observed in public it ought to be ok
What is really a minority outlier position is to bring right/wrong into something that simply is.
I'm not saying it "ought to be OK' to do anything. I am saying what IS. What will ALWAYS BE. What you CANNOT CHANGE. Are *you* saying we must cover the roadways in blacked-out tunnels so no-one can observe them?
It is the hight of stupidity to protest something you cannot change - like yelling at the ra
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... for anyone and everyone to surveille individuals or entire populations building detailed dossiers on everyone's movements.
The last part of the sentence, that you so conveniently left out, totally invalidates your entire argument. No where did GP say people should expect total privacy while in public, he said it should not be OK to surveille and keep detailed records of ones activities while in public. IMHO, a limit as to how long said data can be held, what can and cannot be done with that data, who can access it, and what process needs to be taken to access that data and use in in an investigation or court of law should be
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Why can't you change it? Politics is not a law of nature.
No thanks (Score:2)
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Couldn't happen to a nicer state.
Why not just hire three people (Score:3)
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This'll be a different kind of "minority" report. If you train an AI to look at people and "detect anomalies" in Idaho, you're quite literally asking it to point out people that look different, people who look like a minority compared to the majority of the population. If their goal is to be racist while hiding behind an algorithm, then this ought to be a great success.
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The Mormon church runs Utah, and is pretty racist.
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Another article on Banjo (Score:2)
This was published today:
https://www.sltrib.com/news/po... [sltrib.com]
Those little white lies... (Score:3)
It claims it does this while somehow stripping all personal data from the system, allowing it to help cops without putting anyone's privacy at risk.
Those clothes don't make you look fat, and the check's in the mail, and of course I won't come in your mouth.
Sounds familiar (Score:2)
" You are being watched. The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people. The Government considers these people "irrelevant". We don't. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up... we'll find *you*"
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Finch, is that you?
Can you send John and Fusco over to rescue me? Root and Shw would be fine too if that would be quicker.
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" You are being watched. The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people. The Government considers these people "irrelevant". We don't. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up... we'll find *you*"
Spoiler:
Actually there were 2 machines. 1 of them wasn't very picky about just killing people it didn't need, or considered as threatening. Oh and one of my favorite shows. Still on Netflix US as far as I know.
Bing-watching Person of Interest much? (Score:1)
Not as off-topic as you think (Score:2, Troll)
Revelation 2:9
I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.
They said gunshot microphones wouldn't eavesdrop. (Score:2)
I seem to recall that the gunshot microphone system builders made a big point that their microphones wouldn't be listening in on conversations.
This came up a lot in hearings, when people were upset about installing real-time microphones in several locations scattered around the city (at undisclosed locations to keep the "bad guys" from disabling or spoofing the system.)
But now:
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You seem to have thought this out pretty well.
I didn't have to. The gangsters of East Palo Alto and Oakland already did. B-b
Expect a knock on your door from a friendly FBI agent in the coming days...
Been there, did that. By the time it settled out I kept my security clearance and the hearing officer was dismissed for "overzealousness". B-)
I wonder who else might get the info. (Score:5, Interesting)
The state of Utah has given an artificial intelligence company real-time access to ... 911 emergency systems, location data for state-owned vehicles, and other sensitive data.
A number of cities have had problems with members of their local gangs getting jobs as dispatchers. When a crime was called in, if the dispatcher knew it was a gang member, she could tip off the gangsters that they'd been spotted and it was time to clear out.
They could also delay or drop the call, preventing any cops from ever showing up. And the identifying information demanded could be used to target anyone fool enough to report the gang activity or serve as witnesses against them. But even without delaying the radio call, or having to bribe the front-line cops, the crooks could be "too elusive to catch".
So now this information is being given in real-time to a private company, which is feeding it to an A.I.? What an opportunity for the bad guys to get hold of it.
Even if they don't suborn or install any PEOPLE in the target company (or get it to sell them the information, getting paid by both sides), they could crack the system well enough to tap it.
But why stop there? If they can get into the A.I. itself, they could teach it to analyze the cop activity and tip them, all automatically.
Ever watch "Person of Interest"? Imagine if, instead of Finch and Reed, it was Crips, Bloods, MS-13, Norteños, Sureños, ...
Scapegoating small salmons (Score:1)
But I'm nobody's friend, I'm a demolition man (Score:1)
Watchdogs anyone? (Score:2)
Is this ctOS?
https://watchdogs.fandom.com/w... [fandom.com]