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Content type: Examples
29th October 2021
The 20 years since the 9/11 attacks have fundamentally changed the way the New York Police Department operates, leading it to use facial recognition software, licence plate readers, and mobile X-ray vans, among other surveillance tools for both detecting and blocking potential terrorist attacks and solving minor crimes. Surveillance drones monitor mass protests, antiterrorism officers interrogate protesters, and the NYPD’s Intelligence Division uses antiterror tactics against gang violence and…
Content type: Examples
29th October 2021
Clashes between police and lockdown protesters have spawned reports of police brutality in Greece. Mobile phone footage of one such protest in March 2021 suggested that the police are using drones to surveil the protests, and some of those remanded have complained that they’ve been beaten and subjected to threats and sexual harassment while in custody. Disinfaux Collective has identified an individual caught on video throwing a petrol bomb as “either a police officer of the DRASI unit… or,under…
Content type: Examples
12th April 2020
After police in Bellevue, WA were inundated with calls from local residents reporting suspected violations of the state's week-old stay-at-home order, they asked the public to use the MyBellevue app instead, to keep 911 lines open for emergencies. The police added that they have no plans to charge or arrest violators, but will visit reported hot spots in order to educate the public about the rules. Residents are required to remain at home but there are exceptions for essential industries, trips…
Content type: Examples
12th April 2020
Spanish police are using drones to warn people to stay indoors apart from necessary trips after seeing a spike in COVID-19 cases. Human officers control the drones and relay via radio warnings to people to leave public parks and return home.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/spanish-police-using-drones-to-ask-people-stay-at-home-2020-3
Writer: Charlie Wood
Publication: BusinessInsider
Content type: Examples
12th April 2020
On March 9, SK Telecom began providing South Korea's Gyeongbuk Provincial Police Agency with its Geovision population analysis service and GIRAF platform. The company claims that the combination can analyse mobile geolocation data across the country in real time, create visualisations, and show how many people are in 10x10 metre lattices, enabling police to send officers where they're needed to enforce distancing measures. The company is in talks with the Korean National Police Agency to expand…
Content type: Examples
30th March 2020
Together with Norwegian company Simula the Norwegian Institute of Public Health is developping a voluntary app to track users geolocation and slow the spread of Covid-19. Running in the background, the app will collect GPS and Bluetooth location data and store them on a server for 30 days. If a user is diagnosed with the virus, its location data can be user to trace all the phones that have been in close contact with the person. Authorities will use this data to send an SMS only to those phones…
Content type: Examples
26th March 2020
The new Singaporean app, TraceTogether, developed by the Government Technology Agency in collaboration with the Ministry of Health was launched on March 20 after eight weeks of development. The app, which can be downloaded by anyone with a Singapore mobile number and a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone, asks users to turn on Bluetooth and location services, and enable push notifications. The app works by exchanging short-distance Bluetooth signals between phones to detect other users within two…
Content type: Examples
26th March 2020
Technology such as Hong Kong's electronic monitoring bracelets, used to ensure that people do not break their mandated quarantine, may appear reasonable during a pandemic, but could be problematic if deployed widely and used to identify those who have joined anti-government protests. The same applies to emergency legislation such as that passed by the UK government granting the government extraordinary new powers to shut down airports and ban gatherings. History provides examples: temporary…
Content type: Examples
22nd March 2020
Hong Kong is issuing electronic tracker wristbands to people under compulsory home quarantine to ensure they do not go out. The wristbands are accompanied by a mandatory smartphone app that shares their location with the government via messaging platforms such as WeChat and WhatsApp. Upon arriving at the place where they are quarantined, users walk around the corners so the technology can track the space in which they are confined.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/hong-kong-uses-…
Content type: Examples
13th August 2019
In 2018, Brian Hofer, the chair of Oakland's Privacy Advisory Commission, filed suit after police wrongfully stopped him at gunpoint because their automated license plate recognition system, supplied by Vigilant Solutions, indicated that the rental car he was driving had been stolen. The car had in fact been stolen some months earlier, but been recovered. Despite such errors, police claim that the technology has helped reduce crime, identify stolen vehicles, and identify and arrest suspects.…
Content type: Examples
13th August 2019
In February 2019 Gemalto announced it would supply the Uganda Police Force with its Cogent Automated Biometric Identification System and LiveScan technology in order to improve crime-solving. LiveScan enables police to capture biometric data alongside mugshots and biographical data. CABIS speeds up the biometric matching process by mapping distinctive characteristics in fingerprints, palm prints, and facial images. The Ugandan police will also pilot Gemalto's Mobile Biometric Identification…
Content type: Examples
12th August 2019
VeriPol, a system developed at the UK's Cardiff University, analyses the wording of victim statements in order to help police identify fake reports. By January 2019, VeriPol was in use by Spanish police, who said it helped them identify 64 false reports in one week and was successful in more than 80% of cases. The basic claim is that AI can find patterns that are common to false statements; among the giveaways experts say that false statements are likely to be shorter than genuine ones, focus…
Content type: Examples
12th August 2019
In November 2016 the UK Information Commissioner's Office issued an enforcement notice against London's Metropolitan Police, finding that there had been multiple and serious breaches of data protection law in the organisation's use of the Gangs Violence Matrix, which it had operated since 2012. The ICO documented failures of oversight and coherent guidance, and an absence of basic data protection practices such as encryption and agreements covering data sharing. Individuals whose details are…
Content type: Examples
20th December 2018
In 2018 a report from the Royal United Services Institute found that UK police were testing automated facial recognition, crime location prediction, and decision-making systems but offering little transparency in evaluating them. An automated facial recognition system trialled by the South Wales Police incorrectly identified 2,279 of 2,470 potential matches. In London, where the Metropolitan Police used facial recognition systems at the Notting Hill Carnival, in 2017 the system was wrong 98% of…
Content type: Examples
3rd December 2017
A 2009 paper by the US National Academy of Sciences found that among forensic methods only DNA can reliably and consistency match evidence to specific individuals or sources. While it's commonly understood that techniques such as analysis of blood spatter patterns are up for debate, other types of visual evidence have been more readily accepted. In 2015 the FBI announced that virtually all of its hair analysis testing was scientifically indefensible, and in 2016 the Texas Forensic Science…