Los Angeles Law Enforcement Looking To Crowdsource Surveillance
from the snitches-get-stitches-cloud-storage dept
The LAPD wants you, Joe Citizen, to help it out with its surveillance. It has enlisted the help of a crowdsourcing tool called LEEDIR to collect photos and recordings from everyday people who may have additional footage of natural disasters or civil unrest that could help out both emergency responders and cops looking to put a few more demonstrators in jail.
In today's announcement, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, and the Boston Marathon bombings were mentioned as scenarios in which LEEDIR could help law enforcement respond to disasters or large-scale public security threats. One might also imagine large citizen protests like Occupy Wall Street being the focus of such crowdsourced surveillance.It's unarguable that the addition of crowdsourced photos and video helped authorities track down the Boston Bombing suspects, which shows that there is some value to this service. But, as is pointed out by Xeni Jardin, it could also be used to build a database of people enjoying First Amendment-protected activities. Currently, the site is soliciting input for any info related to last week's party-turned-riot in Isla Vista, CA, where over 100 arrests were made and 44 people injured, including five police officers. The notice clearly states the police are "seeking to identify several subjects wanted for violent felonies that occurred during the evening."
This is a potentially useful tool that isn't completely evil, but there are some definite concerns. For one, there's no real way to submit anything anonymously. You aren't required to input your name, but the app itself demands access to GPS data and any other communications-related metadata is likely hoovered up by LEEDIR when images and video are uploaded.
There are also other questions left unanswered about the handling of the data submitted.
According to today's announcement, agencies might typically retain uploaded content for a month or two, then delete it. But there's no requirement to delete it…And the way the system is accessed and used seems to lend itself to abuse.
It's up to law enforcement to provide analysts or investigators to sort through all of the content uploaded to LEEDIR and find potential evidence…An unfiltered influx of photos and videos curated by law enforcement officers. What could possibly go wrong? The tool may be aimed at natural disasters (which provides free access to police and emergency responders in the affected area), but paid subscriptions are available which would keep LEEDIR live at all times for any law enforcement agency willing to foot the bill.
Once the content is uploaded, it belongs to law enforcement, [Co-Global CEO Nick] Namikas said. It's up to each agency to decide how long they want to store the content in the cloud – a service being provided by Amazon.
As if the potential negatives of this sort of crowdsourcing weren't apparent enough, there's also the very large problem of who's behind this new system.
Under the leadership of disgraced former LA County Sheriff Lee Baca, the department is said to have conceptualized the web service and smartphone app, which was built by Citizen Global with Amazon…But LA Sheriff's Dept. commander Scott Edson sees no downside:
Baca's administration was plagued by corruption and scandal, and he resigned amid ongoing investigation into possible criminal activity. Certainly no such imperfect leader would misuse LEEDIR.
“I like to call this a flag-waving opportunity,” Edson said. “This is a great opportunity for the public who really wants to catch those guys as badly as any law enforcement agency wants to catch them. Now they’re going to have an opportunity.”Sure. Just like "see something, say something" filled DHS Fusion Centers with thousands of reports of people using cameras. With unfiltered access to whatever citizens submit, law enforcement can browse for unrelated criminal activity or simply use it to fill in the holes in their surveillance network.
It's not that it couldn't help, as it did in the Boston Bombing. It's that the downside isn't even being considered by the proponents of the system, which include a former law enforcement official accused of corruption. There's seemingly no oversight to the program and absolutely no concerns being raised about privacy or the potentially endless retention of non-relevant footage and photos.
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Filed Under: crowd sourcing, la, lapd, los angeles, police, surveillance
Reader Comments
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Congratulations, Tim. You've really made something of yourself.
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Re:
What,s that, Timmy? Anonymity is being murdered? Well,t hen if you have nothing to hide, Timmy, you have nothing to fear. Well, Timmy, that is, of course, unless we want you to be scared! ARREST THAT BOY!
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The requested permissions look more like let us spy on you than give us any possible evidence that you may have captured. The gathering of evidence needs the ability to upload a files under user control, and maybe take a live video/audio feed, also under user control, oh and the option on the upload site for the user to identify themselves if they are willing to appear as a witness.
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Remind Me
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Snow Crash
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Brain... temporarily... broken. I know it's in the dictionary, but damn, does it look ugly in the real world.
Not criticizing, just wasn't prepared to see anyone actually use this version.
***
Don't be too surprised this kind of thing grows in popularity.
The first step to making a police state is to pretend people aren't in one.
This program is going to get huge support because people just can't see 3 steps in front of them, until it's too late.
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Trust is a another issue
ANd thats without even getting into the abuse angle. Or the fact that I'm not seeing what's to prevent protesters from "flooding the sytem" with useless photos of puppies, and clowns and fire hydrants...
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This could be interesting. Or maybe the protesters themselves taking pictures of random people, including bystanders and uploading them all. This thing is exploitable in both directions!
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They want to provide an easy way for people to record and submit lawbreaking in progress. A website won't do for this -- that's too cumbersome. An app is the way to go. The app should be as convenient to use as possible. This means that the app itself should record the video and audio. That video and audio should be geolocated so the cops know where it was taken. The app should also be able to upload the data to the cops.
The permissions requested are exactly what would be required to accomplish all of that.
Whether or not the cops deserve the amount of trust that capability requires is a different issue, but that they are asking for those permissions is not actually evidence of ill intent.
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Flying Fascist
Start your Fascist flag waving and goose stepping!
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Cop didn't see it; I didn't do it
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How will they establish the provenance of this data?
Making such a determination is (a) difficult (b) time-consuming and (c) occasionally impossible based on the available facts. So will they tackle the job, or will they just blithely drop everything they get into their database without bothering? If the former, then the intake rate will be extremely slow and the cost will be quite high. If the latter, then they'll soon have a database full of unverified crap, some of which will be deliberately falsified.
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Synergy
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Baka!
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LASD/LAPD
I hate all cops, but part of that is knowing which cops are responsible for which Orwellian program. ;)
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In the opinion of the cops, "violent felonies" would cover someone putting up their hands to protect themselves from a cop's billy club.
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crowds
I think that you would be really interested in some of the most cutting-edge research that I have come across explaining crowds, open innovation, and citizen science.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=1919614
And you may also enjoy this blog about the same too:
https://thecrowdsociety.jux.com/
Powerful stuff, no?
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Better Term Needed
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potential irony incoming?
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