Police Departments Are Turning To AI To Sift Through Unreviewed Body-Cam Footage (propublica.org) 40
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ProPublica: Over the last decade, police departments across the U.S. have spent millions of dollars equipping their officers with body-worn cameras that record what happens as they go about their work. Everything from traffic stops to welfare checks to responses to active shooters is now documented on video. The cameras were pitched by national and local law enforcement authorities as a tool for building public trust between police and their communities in the wake of police killings of civilians like Michael Brown, an 18 year old black teenager killed in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. Video has the potential not only to get to the truth when someone is injured or killed by police, but also to allow systematic reviews of officer behavior to prevent deaths by flagging troublesome officers for supervisors or helping identify real-world examples of effective and destructive behaviors to use for training. But a series of ProPublica stories has shown that a decade on, those promises of transparency and accountability have not been realized.
One challenge: The sheer amount of video captured using body-worn cameras means few agencies have the resources to fully examine it. Most of what is recorded is simply stored away, never seen by anyone. Axon, the nation's largest provider of police cameras and of cloud storage for the video they capture, has a database of footage that has grown from around 6 terabytes in 2016 to more than 100 petabytes today. That's enough to hold more than 5,000 years of high definition video, or 25 million copies of last year's blockbuster movie "Barbie." "In any community, body-worn camera footage is the largest source of data on police-community interactions. Almost nothing is done with it," said Jonathan Wender, a former police officer who heads Polis Solutions, one of a growing group of companies and researchers offering analytic tools powered by artificial intelligence to help tackle that data problem.
The Paterson, New Jersey, police department has made such an analytic tool a major part of its plan to overhaul its force. In March 2023, the state's attorney general took over the department after police shot and killed Najee Seabrooks, a community activist experiencing a mental health crisis who had called 911 for help. The killing sparked protests and calls for a federal investigation of the department. The attorney general appointed Isa Abbassi, formerly the New York Police Department's chief of strategic initiatives, to develop a plan for how to win back public trust. "Changes in Paterson are led through the use of technology," Abbassi said at a press conference announcing his reform plan in September, "Perhaps one of the most exciting technology announcements today is a real game changer when it comes to police accountability and professionalism." The department, Abassi said, had contracted with Truleo, a Chicago-based software company that examines audio from bodycam videos to identify problematic officers and patterns of behavior.
For around $50,000 a year, Truleo's software allows supervisors to select from a set of specific behaviors to flag, such as when officers interrupt civilians, use profanity, use force or mute their cameras. The flags are based on data Truleo has collected on which officer behaviors result in violent escalation. Among the conclusions from Truleo's research: Officers need to explain what they are doing. "There are certain officers who don't introduce themselves, they interrupt people, and they don't give explanations. They just do a lot of command, command, command, command, command," said Anthony Tassone, Truleo's co-founder. "That officer's headed down the wrong path." For Paterson police, Truleo allows the department to "review 100% of body worn camera footage to identify risky behaviors and increase professionalism," according to its strategic overhaul plan. The software, the department said in its plan, will detect events like uses of force, pursuits, frisks and non-compliance incidents and allow supervisors to screen for both "professional and unprofessional officer language." There are around 30 police departments currently use Truleo, according to the company.
Christopher J. Schneider, a professor at Canada's Brandon University who studies the impact of emerging technology on social perceptions of police, is skeptical the AI tools will fix the problems in policing because the findings might be kept from the public just like many internal investigations. "Because it's confidential," he said, "the public are not going to know which officers are bad or have been disciplined or not been disciplined."
One challenge: The sheer amount of video captured using body-worn cameras means few agencies have the resources to fully examine it. Most of what is recorded is simply stored away, never seen by anyone. Axon, the nation's largest provider of police cameras and of cloud storage for the video they capture, has a database of footage that has grown from around 6 terabytes in 2016 to more than 100 petabytes today. That's enough to hold more than 5,000 years of high definition video, or 25 million copies of last year's blockbuster movie "Barbie." "In any community, body-worn camera footage is the largest source of data on police-community interactions. Almost nothing is done with it," said Jonathan Wender, a former police officer who heads Polis Solutions, one of a growing group of companies and researchers offering analytic tools powered by artificial intelligence to help tackle that data problem.
The Paterson, New Jersey, police department has made such an analytic tool a major part of its plan to overhaul its force. In March 2023, the state's attorney general took over the department after police shot and killed Najee Seabrooks, a community activist experiencing a mental health crisis who had called 911 for help. The killing sparked protests and calls for a federal investigation of the department. The attorney general appointed Isa Abbassi, formerly the New York Police Department's chief of strategic initiatives, to develop a plan for how to win back public trust. "Changes in Paterson are led through the use of technology," Abbassi said at a press conference announcing his reform plan in September, "Perhaps one of the most exciting technology announcements today is a real game changer when it comes to police accountability and professionalism." The department, Abassi said, had contracted with Truleo, a Chicago-based software company that examines audio from bodycam videos to identify problematic officers and patterns of behavior.
For around $50,000 a year, Truleo's software allows supervisors to select from a set of specific behaviors to flag, such as when officers interrupt civilians, use profanity, use force or mute their cameras. The flags are based on data Truleo has collected on which officer behaviors result in violent escalation. Among the conclusions from Truleo's research: Officers need to explain what they are doing. "There are certain officers who don't introduce themselves, they interrupt people, and they don't give explanations. They just do a lot of command, command, command, command, command," said Anthony Tassone, Truleo's co-founder. "That officer's headed down the wrong path." For Paterson police, Truleo allows the department to "review 100% of body worn camera footage to identify risky behaviors and increase professionalism," according to its strategic overhaul plan. The software, the department said in its plan, will detect events like uses of force, pursuits, frisks and non-compliance incidents and allow supervisors to screen for both "professional and unprofessional officer language." There are around 30 police departments currently use Truleo, according to the company.
Christopher J. Schneider, a professor at Canada's Brandon University who studies the impact of emerging technology on social perceptions of police, is skeptical the AI tools will fix the problems in policing because the findings might be kept from the public just like many internal investigations. "Because it's confidential," he said, "the public are not going to know which officers are bad or have been disciplined or not been disciplined."
Naturally, auditing. (Score:2, Interesting)
If "AI" can be used to analyze and look for crime, it may be only a matter of time before "AI" is capable of being abused to create "crime", and for the same reason. Don't sell me "justice" when we already know it's all about the money.
skeptical the AI tools will fix the problems in policing because the findings might be kept from the public just like many internal investigations. "Because it's confidential," he said, "the public are not going to know which officers are bad or have been disciplined or not been disciplined."
Oh, I don't think we need to educate law enforcement on how to sanitize such a database and ensure those discipline reports are anonymous so that the public can still see enough results to call bullshit or not on the next round of funding. Or voting.
well in court demand that source code and docs! (Score:2)
well in court demand that source code and docs! If they can't give them then you must aquit!
Re:Naturally, auditing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, I don't think we need to educate law enforcement on how to sanitize such a database and ensure those discipline reports are anonymous so that the public can still see enough results to call bullshit or not on the next round of funding. Or voting.
Nothing will happen until immunity is stripped.
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Oh, I don't think we need to educate law enforcement on how to sanitize such a database and ensure those discipline reports are anonymous so that the public can still see enough results to call bullshit or not on the next round of funding. Or voting.
Nothing will happen until immunity is stripped.
You strip corruption of it's power by removing it from power. You either fire that problem, or vote for the person who can and will.
Just publish it (Score:2)
Hey, let the world enjoy it.
"Florida Man" goes next level, instead of Reddit stories, we now get to see it on YouTube.
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Publish a zillion hours of unvetted video? How many victims do you think are on film who don't want to be victimized again by having their victimization published for Reddit and 4chan amusement?
Oh look, here's a guy who got his face beat in. There's a woman who got raped. Yay, so fun.
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We find out that recording everything isn't a good idea?
Who'd have thought?
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There's nothing wrong with cop cams recording all their encounters. The purpose is to have a neutral perspective on how things went down when the cops accuse someone of something like resisting arrest or the person accuses the cops of abusive behavior. But after some reasonable period of time has passed with no charges or complaints filed in either direction, the film should be destroyed.
What is the value of body cam footage from some random traffic stop from 8 years ago that neither side said went badly?
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You know, in my country, cops don't have cams that record everything they do.
In my country, we also don't have cops that single out minorities and beat them senseless.
I think you have a social problem and try to solve it with technology. Experience says that this doesn't work. Get better cops! Preferably make being a cop something that isn't open to racist bastard, you might get a better overall experience and performance.
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How do you know your cops aren't doing that? Maybe you need body cams.
People here denied anything was going on, too. Until we got body cams.
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Simple. There would be at least some kind of accusations that it happens. If there's no smoke, there's likely no fire.
Absence of evidence... (Score:3, Interesting)
You want to find something or reasonably determine it is not present? Incentivize the searchers. For instance... let the public* review the footage. If ordinary citizens can't find anything, it's probably not there. Or offer the AI searchers something like $100k for every instance of breach of ethics they can find, with effectively no pay if they find none.
Yes, yes, privacy. I know. This is an example.
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But I don't think the use case here is to review with AI when there is an allegation of misconduct.
I think the purpose here is to automatically review the thousands of hours of footage that $LOCAL_PD produces so that they can audit their own officers and identify bad conduct that did not raise to a complain before the officer goes postal.
1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
>"Most of what is recorded is simply stored away, never seen by anyone"
Right. And that is the way it should be. And the video should be deleted automatically after X amount of time, as well. The purpose is to have evidence available if there is a complaint or issue or incident. Not to go on a never-ending phishing quest to find things to pick on and invent ever more nit-picking nonsense. We are going to get FAR less buy-in by both the police AND the public if we feel like there are super-human "beings" analyzing every second of what is on every video until the end of time... Every word, every movement, every person in the background walking by, every moment of every day. It is creepy to the highest order and further cements the coming 1984-like society.
With everything there is a balance. Where that balance is can be hard to determine and hotly debated, but I think most would agree that retaining video indefinitely and AI-analyzing it to death is not balanced.
Re:1984 (Score:5, Interesting)
And when ProPublica says " those promises of transparency and accountability have not been realized," sure, they're never not going to say that. But things actually have changed, a lot.
1) Make recording manditory, with punishment for disabling it
2) Make it encrypted, and don't give the police the key
3) It is decrypted upon court order, unedited, to both sides
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I am glad you mentioned the "promises not realized" nonsense. I actually typed out a response to that as well, and then removed it as not part of my chosen focus.
It is laughable to use any language that would dismiss the huge impact that body cameras have had, already, on transparency, accountability, and trust. It is never going to be perfect, especially when it comes to balancing privacy concerns.
I am just as concerned about protecting the police officers as I am the public interacting with them. It is
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I am just as concerned about protecting the police officers as I am the public interacting with them. It is an extraordinarily difficult job in many ways. And when you watch a lot of footage, like I have (from both perspectives- critical of police and critical of perps), it is astonishing the outrageous things officers have to put up with.
Perhaps the police should do some looking inward to see why so many people dislike them. Respect is earned, it is not automatically given. The burden is on citizens to know every law but if the police only believe they're following the law they're automatically cleared of wrongdoing. If everywhere you go people hate you, where do you think the problem is?
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>"Perhaps the police should do some looking inward to see why so many people dislike them."
That applies both ways. Perhaps the public should do the same. A lot of people want to blame the police for problems they are making, themselves. Or misdirecting their angst of laws onto the police instead of the legislators.
There are bad cops, and there are hell of a lot of bad non-cops out there. And the reverse as well.
>"Respect is earned"
No. We all should respect everyone, until given an individual case
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My rule would be if any footage is "lost" or a dozen cops all "forgot" to turn on their cameras the case is instantly dismissed. The evidence chain is compromised.
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Follow-up to self...
Note that, I believe that EVERYONE has an absolute right to obtain complete, timely, unredacted, unrestricted video of an interaction in which they were present with the police (that includes the officers). Also to include the "responsible parties" (like the spouse/parents/guardians/POAs/lawyers/agents) of such people in the case of death, disability, or being a minor. And either they OR the police can release (or not release) what they want to the general public.
Memory Hole (Score:2)
Depends.
I could argue it is record of a government official performing an official function. While I'm uncertain of the record keeping requirements generally imposed for this, statue of limitations is probably a good stand-in, which means forever and a day. That is the standard law enforcement enacts against the populace, right?
The purpose is to have evidence available if there is a complaint or issue or incident.
That's a possible purpose. Another.is also to establish patterns of norms by law enforc
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>"statue of limitations is probably a good stand-in, which means forever and a day."
It is typically 7 years, but can vary wildly. Compared to several months, that is a long time. But nowhere near forever :)
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Statue of limitations for murder is indeed forever, and in some jurisdictions forever for ANY felony.
No, this is a GOOD thing. (Score:2)
Like most tech, it's mostly BAD with some good uses and fanboys never imagining the abuses.
Filtering out 1000s of hours of video is expensive for highly paid police employees to do. This is not speed cameras on every road, it's police evidence that needs sorting and deleting.
Remember those situations where the cop "forgot" to turn on their camera? The AI could be turning it on for them and a bigger AI could be deleting the false positive footage of the cop's lunch (except eating spaghetti, that probably lo
In other news... (Score:2, Interesting)
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Maybe citizens should start wearing body cameras. Of course I don't want to think about people recording their morning dumps and posting them on Tiktok.
I already routinely post my bowel movements on Tiktok. Thats about all its good for anyway.
Expectation of privacy (Score:2)
Until that precedence dealing with expectation of privacy while in public is changed, I think we should have just as much access to public recordings as the police do. And being a publicly funded organization, purportedly for the public's protection, all body-cam footage shot in public space should be publicly available. Once they enter a home or business, then there should be
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Wrong attitude. (Score:3)
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My experience in law enforcement IT is that if you give cops data, they will want to use it. ALPR was the first time I encountered this, police-monitored public cameras the next. They want to mine it all and it's kind of scary how far they are willing to go without any considerations of ethics at all. They're not trained to think that way, they're trained to get evidence and make arrests.
The idea that the data should be ignored until a complaint justifies examining it (and destroyed after a predetermined
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I would have to disagree on the neighbour reporting. Those disputes get nasty quickly... not quite as badly as domestics, but it's still better that once it crosses a reasonable threshold you have a cop there to underling the bad actors better shape up or serious consequences are coming.
As for teens... yeah, not every group of kids walking down the street is up to no good, leave 'em the hell alone until they're doing something that crosses the line into a ticketable offence at least.
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It's important to understand the role of cops. If we're reasonable in the services we demand, and less selfish in our approa
HR is not amused (Score:2)
Thousands of cops will get fired.