Wolfcom Decides It Wants To Be The First US Body Cam Company To Add Facial Recognition Tech To Its Products
from the taking-one-for-the-surveillance-team dept
Axon says it won't do it. Ring, less believably, says it won't do it. Some federal agencies want everyone to do it. But here's an actual tech company willing to do it: toss facial recognition tech into its cameras.
Wolfcom, a company that makes technology for police, is pitching body cameras with live facial recognition to law enforcement groups across the United States, OneZero has learned.
[...]
Wolfcom claims to have sold body cameras to at least 1,500 police departments, universities, and federal organizations across the country. It has been developing live facial recognition for the Halo, Wolfcom’s newest body camera model, according to documents and a video obtained by OneZero through public records requests.
Opposition to facial recognition tech appears to be increasing. But Wolfcom knows its market and its purchasers -- law enforcement agencies -- aren't among those demanding moratoriums or outright bans of the tech's use in law enforcement equipment. Wolfcom would be the first company to blend body cameras and facial recognition AI, moving it ahead of all the other companies that have only discussed it.
Right now, the AI isn't actually live. The marketing video suggests it is but those testing it -- including a few law enforcement agencies -- are currently limited to uploading photos from body cameras for the company to match against its database. Or whoever's databases. It's not entirely clear what Wolfcom is using to match faces to names.
“Let’s say a police officer in Arizona two months ago had taken a photo of this guy. It would recognize that and then tell our officer, ‘Hey, you know what? This guy was in Arizona for maybe battery against a police officer,’” Lieutenant Jose Hernandez, of the Los Lunas Police Department, told OneZero. However, it’s not clear which databases the Wolfcom software would be searching or whether it would be able to access information from multiple police departments.
Everyone loves a surveillance tech company with an air of mystery about it. About the only thing Wolfcom is doing right is not promising sky high accuracy rate for its unproven product when pitching it to government agencies. That's the end of the "good" list. Agencies who have been asked to beta test the "live" facial recognition AI are being given free passes to use the software in the future, when (or if) it actually goes live.
Right now, Wolfcom's offering bears some resemblance to Clearview's: an app-based search function that taps into whatever databases the company has access to. Except in this case, even less is known about the databases Wolfcom uses or if it's using its own algorithm or simply licensing one from another purveyor.
None of these unanswered questions are preventing Wolfcom from pitching "live" facial recognition to its law enforcement user base. If it can find a way to tie this in, it will become the industry leader. And that's not necessarily a good thing, now that legislators are beginning to question the negative side effects of this technology.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: body cameras, facial recognition, police
Companies: wolfcom
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
I'm not entirely sure what the term Facial Recognition entails and I suspect that each implementation will be different, so I am at a loss as to what they mean by add facial recognition to something.
I suspect that the camera sensor, lens, storage will require upgrade from what is presently standard issue police body cam. In addition, I wonder how they intend to perform the image search, is it local or remote? Either way there are huge problems that I doubt have been overcome. If local, the cam will need huge memory and periodic updates while if remote the cam will need huge bandwidth ... is this why they want 5G?
Also ... it does not work.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Waiting
I'm waiting for the story of the first person misidentified and shot.
Will the company supplying the tech be held responsible?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Waiting
I am going to bet that 1) there will be a non-disclosure agreement that prevents anyone from telling anyone that their system exists, let alone gets used, and 2) there will be a black box component to the system that cannot be violated due to state...um...industrial secrets, which will prevent anyone from placing blame anywhere...other than the person killed (they must have deserved it, even if it was the wrong person). For the above reasons the blame will be placed on no-one, and Mr. No-one will have left the jurisdiction to a country without an extradition agreement with anyone.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Waiting
Which is why this tech should be banned outright. It's not going to be used for the betterment of the public.
Leave it to an untapped market to create a dystopian hellhole on earth, for nothing more than profits.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Waiting
Not under Section 230. Blame the shooter, not the bodycam.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Waiting
With the coronavirus hovering over mankind now, suddenly being tested and having the results entered into a database along with facial identity scans, its not to hard to see that facial recognition is here to stay.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Waiting
There are those criminal minds that Law Enforcement must clearly be readying themselves for that will use this disease as a way to inflict it upon others. I would think you will see a different approach to the way the government personnel interact with the public now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Nothing to hide, nothing to fear.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There are ways..
to make, create this to work very well.
But 90% is the amounts of DATA required and the Time to access it remotely....
But it should all start with taking BETTER PICTURES FOR DMV/DOT. And hope other agencies wont use them(DONT BET ON IT).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: There are ways..
I hate my photo on my driver's license and passport. Is there some way to introduce updated editing so People can get authorized makeovers on these IDs?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ban it!
An invention of the devil. Should have been strangled at birth!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]