Police in Jackson, Mississippi, want access to live home security video, alarming privacy advocates
Civil liberties advocates warn that a new surveillance tool will put people’s everyday household activities under potential scrutiny by police.
JACKSON, Miss. — Strapped for cash and facing a sharp rise in homicides, city leaders here are expanding police surveillance powers to allow residents and business owners to send live feeds from many types of security cameras — including popular doorbell cameras — directly to the city’s real-time command center.
The new use of this livestreaming technology by police, which is undergoing a final legal review in Jackson, is drawing interest from other small cities that don’t have the resources to build their own surveillance systems. But some have opted out, citing concerns about privacy violations. Civil liberties advocates say those concerns are valid, warning that the technology could lead to increased police scrutiny of people’s everyday activities and more arrests for low-level offenses.
What you see behind us is an opportunity, an opportunity to better observe and fill in the gaps,” Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba said last month at the ribbon-cutting for the city’s new command center
The move made Jackson, which has struggled to keep up with advances in high-tech crime-fighting, one of two dozen places in the country where police agencies inked deals this year with Fusus, a small Georgia company that aims to make it easier for American law enforcement agencies to build networks of public and private security cameras.
One of those agencies, the police department in Ocoee, Florida, said it planned to use the home livestream function as part of a deal with Fusus approved last month. Other Fusus clients, including police departments in Minneapolis and Rialto, California, said they are not interested in obtaining real-time video from doorbell cameras. Several other law enforcement agencies have not responded to requests for documents or questions about their arrangements with Fusus.
The company helps police departments build networks of public and private cameras. The service includes devices — black boxes the size of Wi-Fi routers — that convert video from just about any kind of camera into a format that can be fed, live or recorded, into a police surveillance hub. Fusus contracts with police departments, which typically sell, subsidize or give the devices to private users. Documents obtained through government records requests show Fusus listing packages from $480 to $1,000 a year per device.
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What caused it?
Jackson, the state capital, with a population of about 160,000, ended 2018 with 84 homicides, the city’s highest count in two decades.
That year, the U.S. Department of Justice found that the city’s policing technology was outdated, leading to discussions about strengthening surveillance powers.
Lumumba announced plans for the real-time command center in early 2019, after a string of deadly shootings. One of the most prominent victims was a Jackson pastor, Anthony Longino, who police said was killed in a robbery outside his church on a Sunday morning.
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The Jackson pilot has brought new attention to the relationship between police and private technology companies whose products often drive law enforcement practices. Hundreds of police departments have information-sharing partnerships with Ring, the Amazon-owned doorbell camera maker. Hundreds more departments have built camera registries, where businesses and homeowners tell police they are willing to share video from their security cameras
....
A new form of surveillance: Police want to livestream home security video
Civil liberties advocates warn that a new surveillance tool will put people’s everyday household activities under potential scrutiny by police.
JACKSON, Miss. — Strapped for cash and facing a sharp rise in homicides, city leaders here are expanding police surveillance powers to allow residents and business owners to send live feeds from many types of security cameras — including popular doorbell cameras — directly to the city’s real-time command center.
The new use of this livestreaming technology by police, which is undergoing a final legal review in Jackson, is drawing interest from other small cities that don’t have the resources to build their own surveillance systems. But some have opted out, citing concerns about privacy violations. Civil liberties advocates say those concerns are valid, warning that the technology could lead to increased police scrutiny of people’s everyday activities and more arrests for low-level offenses.
What you see behind us is an opportunity, an opportunity to better observe and fill in the gaps,” Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba said last month at the ribbon-cutting for the city’s new command center
The move made Jackson, which has struggled to keep up with advances in high-tech crime-fighting, one of two dozen places in the country where police agencies inked deals this year with Fusus, a small Georgia company that aims to make it easier for American law enforcement agencies to build networks of public and private security cameras.
One of those agencies, the police department in Ocoee, Florida, said it planned to use the home livestream function as part of a deal with Fusus approved last month. Other Fusus clients, including police departments in Minneapolis and Rialto, California, said they are not interested in obtaining real-time video from doorbell cameras. Several other law enforcement agencies have not responded to requests for documents or questions about their arrangements with Fusus.
The company helps police departments build networks of public and private cameras. The service includes devices — black boxes the size of Wi-Fi routers — that convert video from just about any kind of camera into a format that can be fed, live or recorded, into a police surveillance hub. Fusus contracts with police departments, which typically sell, subsidize or give the devices to private users. Documents obtained through government records requests show Fusus listing packages from $480 to $1,000 a year per device.
....
What caused it?
Jackson, the state capital, with a population of about 160,000, ended 2018 with 84 homicides, the city’s highest count in two decades.
That year, the U.S. Department of Justice found that the city’s policing technology was outdated, leading to discussions about strengthening surveillance powers.
Lumumba announced plans for the real-time command center in early 2019, after a string of deadly shootings. One of the most prominent victims was a Jackson pastor, Anthony Longino, who police said was killed in a robbery outside his church on a Sunday morning.
....
The Jackson pilot has brought new attention to the relationship between police and private technology companies whose products often drive law enforcement practices. Hundreds of police departments have information-sharing partnerships with Ring, the Amazon-owned doorbell camera maker. Hundreds more departments have built camera registries, where businesses and homeowners tell police they are willing to share video from their security cameras
....
A new form of surveillance: Police want to livestream home security video
