Flock Safety, the police technology company most notable for their extensive network of automated license plate readers spread throughout the United States, is rolling out a new and troubling product that may create headaches for the cities that adopt it: detection of “human distress” via audio. As...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/50110241

Flock Safety, the police technology company most notable for their extensive network of automated license plate readers spread throughout the United States, is rolling out a new and troubling product that may create headaches for the cities that adopt it: detection of “human distress” via audio. As part of their suite of technologies, Flock has been pushing Raven, their version of acoustic gunshot detection. These devices capture sounds in public places and use machine learning to try to identify gunshots and then alert police—but EFF has long warned that they are also high powered microphones parked above densely-populated city streets. Cities now have one more reason to follow the lead of many other municipalities and cancel their Flock contracts, before this new feature causes civil liberties harms to residents and headaches for cities.

  • BanMe@lemmy.world
    10·
    2 days ago

    My city just ended their contract with our shot spotter company because it hasn’t made anyone safer but has resulted in a ton of mistaken dispatches. People know they can fire a gun and simply walk away, it’ll be 10, 20 minutes before police roll by. Who cares?