Last month, thousands of police officers went down to San Diego for the annual conference of the International Police Manager association. While police officers around the world met to network and share information on their work during a long weekend, nearly 700 companies and organizations have settled in the Caverneuse exhibition hall of the City Convention Center, presenting their last products to the best decision-making decision-makers.
Many major players in police technology were present: the body camera and the manufacturer of Taser Axon, Soundthinking (formerly Shotspotter), and the safety of herds, which sells systems that can automatically read license plate numbers and generate data for surveys on the application of the law.
But beyond any lucrative contract that could be out of the seller-play was a clear feeling of the types of technologies that attract the attention of the cops. Many of the latest public security gadgets exhibited at the conference are part of a few big buckets: artificial intelligence and algorithmic products, police tools such as drones and robots, and improved surveillance technologies, such as follow -up devices that look exactly like newport cigarette packs or bottles of drugs.
As would be expected, the AI ​​and algorithmic products dominated the floor of the sometimes frantic exhibition – where participants could go from the test of the last Taser model, the Taser 10, in participation in a virtual reality simulation where they play a officer meeting a school shooter or by patrolling a camp of unscathed people.
Many products fed by AI have claimed the ability to interpret both several data flows and generate investigation information, such as “aggression detectors” on sound monitoring designed for schools or correctional establishments, or vocal analysis algorithms that claim to detect the risk -based risk. Other tools have promised a video analysis fueled by AI, including a platform called Truleo which studies the images of worn cameras, which declared that it could assess the professionalism of an officer by monitoring his use of blasphemy or non-compliance with the rules of the department.
Other companies have sold fewer technical tools such as pocket lamps and batons. Similar to the arguments for more complex tools, the salespeople have made complaints concerning the improvement of the security, precision or efficiency of the police. Twice, for example, the sellers selling police batons invoked Rodney King, who was beaten on the camera in 1991 by four police officers from Los Angeles. The argument of sale for the “Baton of Peace”, which is heavier in the “striking zone” than the handle, stressed that it offered a more “one and fine” solution, rather than a prolonged altercation. “No one wants that,” said a seller.
During the day, many of the 16,000 participants – some of Indonesia, Ireland, the Dominican Republic, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Côte d'Ivoire, Kazakhstan, Haiti, Nigeria, Bahamas, Saudi Arabia, Japan, management of digital evidence and technology technology, retail sale, Politicians, including digital evidence management and technology, the retail center, Smart Cities. Despite the geographic diversity, most presenters and panels were made and made up of Americans and Europeans, notably the FBI chief Christopher Wray and the secretary general of Interpol Jürgen Stock, who both made comments during the conference.
During certain evenings, sponsors and sellers organized various social activities, such as a block festival in the Gaslamp in the city with a escape room sponsored by Axon and a cigar bearing station with the kind authorization of FLOCK SAFETY. Scenes of the conference echoed the “COP con” episode of the sitcom Brooklyn 99, where the actors attend a similar conference with a sprawling exposure and noisy parts.
Surveillance and privacy researchers have attended the conference to better understand what is new in the field that changes from police technology quickly. Experts also said that certain technologies were visibly absent at this year's conference.
“One of the most interesting things is not the technology I have seen, but the technology I have not seen,” said Dave Maass, director of investigations at the Electronic Frontier Foundation for non -profit, who attended three IACP conferences and presented this year on public file requests. “Until that [year]Face recognition was everywhere. I don't think I saw a [vendor] On the ground that it was their main product that they pushed. »»
“I don't know why,” he added. “I haven't really seen him evoke so often in panels. People just did not touch him. And I am not sure that it is because technology has become toxic in public speech, if it is not just as useful and was not up to promises – who knows, but people were not there.”
Instead, machines like drones and police robots were a big goal at the conference, which included several signs on drones as “partners” of public security who could respond to service calls or increase the awareness of the situation of an officer. A type of drone could be used with mapping and scanning software that could create a three -dimensional model of a scene. Another could be used with an “arm” that could break the windows and violate the buildings.
Also popular: improved surveillance technologies, such as automatic license plates.
Many emerging types of public security technologies presented at the conference can be used in concert, said the experts present.
“One of the things I saw was a business selling a [automatic license plate recognition] The camera that has a shots detection, “said Gabriel Pereira, a researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science.” For example, if a car passes very noisy, it could make a race in the street or something like that, he could detect it with these alpr cameras.
“We see the stack of different technologies in a way that is even surprising for American researchers,” added Pereira, who writes a book on ALPR technology.
In another panel, said Maass, the chief of police from the Royal Bahamas connected to an online system and pulled the live video of the bodily camera of an officer on the screen for the public.
“We had always said that the cameras focused on the body are only portable surveillance; they transform the police into surveillance networks,” said Maass. “And this is something that you can say rhetorically, but … literally, they connect to a surveillance network so that the seat police can monitor the worn out of the body in real time. It's just amazing.”
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