Law Enforcement Could Expand Surveillance Capabilities Through Private Companies
There is a growing trend of private companies working with law enforcement or creating work arounds to collect privately recorded data and sharing it with them for investigative purposes, often employing AI for assistance. Consider the case of the company Ring, the popular doorbell and security surveillance system which is owned by Amazon, which recently announced two new features that when enabled, would allow law enforcement and others access to recorded video information from private residences. They recently announced that a new feature called “Search Party” that will purportedly assist with lost pets, primarily dogs at first, by allowing Ring and AI to scan opted-in users’ outdoor camera footage to match reports of a missing pet in the area. A useful tool for pet-friendly users, but Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff said that there could be “other” applications in the future for that feature. Consider the company’s newly announced partnership with Axon Enterprise, a well-known body-worn camera company employed by many law enforcement agencies and the maker of Tasers. They are also implementing a community request tool in which law enforcement will be able to solicit users to share footage from their Ring cameras for investigations, although it is ultimately up to the homeowner if they want to share said footage under the new program. Siminoff defended the new policy, which critics say replaces a similar defunct feature that was shut down among privacy concerns, saying that the feature simply allows law enforcement, “to request footage from people in a super privacy centric, anonymous way that keeps their privacy” and is not compulsory.
Another company, Flock, which also recently announced a partnership with Ring, is a security hardware and software company which is known for working with law enforcement agencies across the country at various level of government that has also recently come under increased scrutiny. An investigation by the ACLU revealed that their default agreement with police departments on their license plate scanner network gives the company the ability to share data collected with federal and local agencies for “investigative purposes” regardless of whether or not the local department restricts that data in some way or another. Again, this does not mean the information is automatically shared across its network, simply that any police department in question must alter the contract language to not allow said sharing, similar to requiring a user to opt-out of the feature. Such features have led to troubling behavior for privacy advocates, such as a Texas police department which used a warrantless nationwide search in an attempt to reportedly track a woman for purposes of referring a woman for possible charges relating to obtaining an abortion, although the department said this was a mischaracterization and they were concerned for her safety. Regardless, such practices, while they may be legal, understandably worry privacy experts and organizations such as the ACLU for their potential for abuse.
Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment
Over recent years, as surveillance technology has grown more sophisticated and readily available for law enforcement, the lines have begun to blur over what is a legal use by authorities and what constitutes a breach of an individual’s right to privacy under the United States Constitution and other laws. As we have previously covered, the Supreme Court of the United States and several appellate courts have weighed in on these concerns and have frequently ruled that there are limitations on large, sweeping data collections of an individual’s private information under the Fourth Amendment for things such as “Geofences” or their long-term historical cell-phone information that tracks an individual’s data. Logically, these precedents would place further limits on mass surveillance use by law enforcement as the apparatus for collecting and reviewing data through the use of artificial intelligence grows, even through private actors. This issue remains ripe for legal challenges, and many expect to see challenges on constitutional grounds in the near future for individuals accused or convicted of crimes which rely on artificial intelligence or emerging, pervasive surveillance technologies. Anyone facing criminal charges should that involves any sort of data sourcing or tracking should hire an experienced criminal defense attorney who is monitoring how these cases at a local and national level and can formulate appropriate challenges to exclude potentially illegally obtained evidence.
