A police car could one day patrol parts of Raleigh without an officer behind the wheel, using cameras and other technology to monitor its surroundings and send information back to police.
The Raleigh Police Department confirmed that Policing Lab, the nonprofit developing the technology, presented its autonomous patrol vehicle concept to command staff in February.
“Technology like this could serve as a force multiplier and, in the future, could potentially have applications on our streets and greenways,” the department said in an email to WRAL.
RPD said it is still gathering information and has not announced a pilot, purchase or deployment.
The program is already being tested in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The vehicle follows predetermined routes and is equipped with 360-degree cameras, license plate readers and facial-recognition-capable technology.
For Raleigh residents, the prospect presents a trade-off between more eyes on the street and questions about how closely those eyes should watch. Maria Dieter, who lives a block from Glenwood Avenue, said she has been harassed while walking downtown and worries about her safety.
“I think having more surveillance is definitely necessary,” Dieter said. “There’s definitely more that could be done.”
Her support comes with reservations.
“I do have concerns over tracking people’s whereabouts and misuse of the technology,” Dieter said. “It makes sense to track people, but there is a line. I don’t know where it is, but there is one.”
Raleigh resident Hayden Horne said he wants to know what happens to the video after it is collected.
“I’m just wondering if it’s just a live feed where someone’s watching it, or if it’s actually being stored and vaulted,” Horne said. “I know that there have been abuses of Flock cameras, and I worry about that here also.”
Angelo Brown, an assistant professor of criminology who researches policing and technology, said safeguards should be in place before rolling out new surveillance systems. Those include limits on how long routine footage is retained, who can access it, and under what circumstances.
“We’ve seen that with so many things that the police usually get them for one reason that’s theoretically really good to increase public safety, but they utilize them for things that they didn’t start off doing,” Brown said.
The vehicle being tested in Miami-Dade can also launch a drone and has thermal imaging, allowing police to gather information beyond what an officer could see from inside a patrol car.
Brown said those capabilities could raise additional privacy and Fourth Amendment questions, depending on how they’re used, particularly if autonomous patrols eventually extend into residential areas or technology is used to gather information from private spaces.
RPD has not said whether a vehicle in Raleigh would include those capabilities or where autonomous patrols could operate.
Brown also cautioned against assuming more surveillance will translate into less crime. Research on police patrols, he said, does not show that simply increasing routine patrol across an area necessarily reduces crime. An autonomous vehicle can record an incident and alert police, though an officer would still have to respond when someone needs police intervention.
Those tradeoffs make the rules for any future Raleigh deployment significant — and many details remain unanswered.
WRAL asked RPD the following questions:
- What surveillance technology could a vehicle here use, and would it include license plate readers or facial recognition?
- What data would be collected and what would be stored?
- Who would have access, and what privacy safeguards would be put in place?
The department did not answer those questions and, instead, issued a statement saying it is still gathering information about the concept.
WRAL also asked Policing Lab about data collection, storage, facial recognition and privacy protections. The company declined to answer those questions and referred WRAL to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff’s office, which is conducting the current pilot, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“We appreciate the opportunity to learn about emerging technologies and better understand how they could potentially be introduced in Raleigh in the future,” the department said.
Source: www.wral.com
