Fusus' AI-Powered Cameras Are Spreading Across the United States 33
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Spread across four computer monitors arranged in a grid, a blue and green interface shows the location of more than 50 different surveillance cameras. Ordinarily, these cameras and others like them might be disparate, their feeds only available to their respective owners: a business, a government building, a resident and their doorbell camera. But the screens, overlooking a pair of long conference tables, bring them all together at once, allowing law enforcement to tap into cameras owned by different entities around the entire town all at once. This is a demonstration of Fusus, an AI-powered system that is rapidly springing up across small town America and major cities alike. Fusus' product not only funnels live feeds from usually siloed cameras into one central location, but also adds the ability to scan for people wearing certain clothes, carrying a particular bag, or look for a certain vehicle.
404 Media has obtained a cache of internal emails, presentations, memos, photos, and more which provide insight into how Fusus teams up with police departments to sell its surveillance technology. All around the country, city councils are debating whether they want to have a system that qualitatively changes what surveillance cameras mean for a town's residents and public agencies. While many have adopted Fusus, others have pushed back, and refused to have the hardware and software installed in their neighborhoods. In some ways, Fusus is deploying smart camera technology that historically has been used in places like South Africa, where experts warned about it creating an ever present blanket of surveillance. Now, tech with some of the same capabilities is being used across small town America.
Rather than selling cameras themselves, Fusus' hardware and software latches onto existing installations, which can include government-owned surveillance cameras as well as privately owned cameras at businesses and homes. It turns dumb cameras into smart ones. "In essence, the Fusus solution puts a brain into every camera connected with the system," one memorandum obtained by 404 Media reads. In addition to integrating with existing surveillance installations, Fusus' hardware, called SmartCORE, can turn cameras into automatic license plate readers (ALPRs). It can reportedly offer facial recognition features, too, although Fusus hasn't provided clear clarification on this matter.
The report says the system has been adopted by numerous police departments across the United States, with approximately 150 jurisdictions using Fusus. Orland Park police have called it a "game-changer." It's also being used internationally, launching in the United Kingdom.
Here's what Beryl Lipton, investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), had to say about it: "The lack of transparency and community conversation around Fusus exacerbates concerns around police access of the system, AI analysis of video, and analytics involving surveillance and crime data, which can influence officer patrols and priorities. In the absence of clear policies, auditable access logs, and community transparency about the capabilities and costs of Fusus, any community in which this technology is adopted should be concerned about its use and abuse."
404 Media has obtained a cache of internal emails, presentations, memos, photos, and more which provide insight into how Fusus teams up with police departments to sell its surveillance technology. All around the country, city councils are debating whether they want to have a system that qualitatively changes what surveillance cameras mean for a town's residents and public agencies. While many have adopted Fusus, others have pushed back, and refused to have the hardware and software installed in their neighborhoods. In some ways, Fusus is deploying smart camera technology that historically has been used in places like South Africa, where experts warned about it creating an ever present blanket of surveillance. Now, tech with some of the same capabilities is being used across small town America.
Rather than selling cameras themselves, Fusus' hardware and software latches onto existing installations, which can include government-owned surveillance cameras as well as privately owned cameras at businesses and homes. It turns dumb cameras into smart ones. "In essence, the Fusus solution puts a brain into every camera connected with the system," one memorandum obtained by 404 Media reads. In addition to integrating with existing surveillance installations, Fusus' hardware, called SmartCORE, can turn cameras into automatic license plate readers (ALPRs). It can reportedly offer facial recognition features, too, although Fusus hasn't provided clear clarification on this matter.
The report says the system has been adopted by numerous police departments across the United States, with approximately 150 jurisdictions using Fusus. Orland Park police have called it a "game-changer." It's also being used internationally, launching in the United Kingdom.
Here's what Beryl Lipton, investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), had to say about it: "The lack of transparency and community conversation around Fusus exacerbates concerns around police access of the system, AI analysis of video, and analytics involving surveillance and crime data, which can influence officer patrols and priorities. In the absence of clear policies, auditable access logs, and community transparency about the capabilities and costs of Fusus, any community in which this technology is adopted should be concerned about its use and abuse."
Integrate it with a lost pet database (Score:3)
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Would need to be very careful with a pet database. Pet theft is a thing, and dog owners would likely reveal a lot of information about themselves from the route they take for walkies.
My advice is wait for Google's version of AirTags, and then attach one of those to your pet's collar.
Links aren't working (Score:4, Funny)
No matter which one I click on, I see a 404.
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Indeed, you should see a 403 if privacy was respected.
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lol, yea, lets make the site looks like a 404 page and hide the content below the ad, yea that'll be cool
Person of interest... (Score:1, Troll)
The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you.....
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Make no mistake this "AI" powered camera network isn't some well-meaning decades old neckbeard's philanthropy project, it's a police state's vice coming for your throat. Get enough of these in place and the next thing will be robocop. (Accidental deaths included.) Why? I'll let Finch answer that for you: "Everyone wanted to be protected. They just didn't want to know how they were being protected." The laziness of the state to take care of problems of it's
Re: Person of interest... (Score:2)
Amazing how this crowd relentlessly succeeds to keep politics even geopolitics out of tech discussions, on top doesn't ever try to polarize. This is how America will be great again! /s
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While you are at least mostly correct, the issue isn't directly politics, it is who watches the watchers. In the end, only allegiance to Big Brother(aka Deep State) will be tolerated. Political Opinions will decide which authoritarian faction will win.
See Conspiracy Theory(movie) and its "They vs Them" explanation.
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No, "Grimm" was in Portland - "Person of Interest" was in NYC...
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"Person of Interest" was mostly great.
Doubleplusgood! (Score:3)
"AI powered" (Score:4, Insightful)
"Look at the buzzword while we roll out a mass surveillance system to surpass the Stasi you stupid bastards. Talk endlessly about the buzzword. Talk about how much you love the buzzword, how you hate the buzzword, how overrated the buzzword is. Just continue to ignore what's happening that isn't the buzzword peons."
False Positives (Score:2)
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I rather suspect that due to various TOS it's not stealing. People may not know that they've agreed to this, but they probably have.
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expectation of privacy (Score:2)
The problem we have to wrestle with is what it means to be in "public". Because that is always the retort. You are in public, thus you have no expectation of privacy.
But when people formulated that notion, there was never any expectation that there would be intelligent, omnipresent, super-human presence everyone, recording and examining everything we do, storing and linking that data and examining it a million different ways. And that "forever" data is just waiting to be weaponized by any number of bad p
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Just consider the implications of the phrase "Thou, O God, seest me.". This concept dates back to at least the middle ages.
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>"Just consider the implications of the phrase "Thou, O God, seest me.". This concept dates back to at least the middle ages."
But, in that context, "God" is all-seeing, and all-goodness. One that will, presumably, judge you at the end.
In THIS article/thread context, we are talking about people with that power- in all their corruption, pettiness, vindictiveness, and wickedness.
All you have to do is imagine your worst enemies or those with the worst motives having immediate and almost unlimited access to
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God was "all good" only in the sense that the faerie were "the good folk".
One way to stop this (Score:2)
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FUSUS is available where I live (Score:2)
FUSUS has partnered with our local PD, and has a website where you can register your cameras. In this case you're just telling the police that cameras are installed at your address, so that they can reach out to you to request footage in case of a crime.
The FUSUS boxes are pricey, and I doubt many residential homeowners would bother to install them. According to the officer I spoke with, it is mainly business owners in downtown and commercial areas who are buying them. There's a lot of late-night smash-a
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>"FUSUS has partnered with our local PD, and has a website where you can register your cameras. In this case you're just telling the police that cameras are installed at your address, so that they can reach out to you to request footage in case of a crime."
That concept I have no problem with. Voluntary enrollment, and requests for footage as long as it requires permission and positive action each time on the owner of the camera system, including an explanation as to what they are looking for/why. You c
EFF (Score:2)
Generally I appreciate the work the EFF does however I am increasingly finding their responses to the evolution of surveillance technology to be lacking. Their website is full of references to community-based workshops and toolkits and the like. They promote 'conversations' on privacy with community leaders, etc etc and have "victories": in 18 'disparate' communities like San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Clara...all with a tilt towards abstinence of video surveillance.
What I think would be useful to society
Lots of hype (Score:2)
Reading through the linked article, I get the strong impression that "AI-powered cameras" is clickbait hyperbole. There's zero "AI" in those cameras or anywhere near them.
What probably does happen is that you buy their devices which "can range between $350 and $7,300". A technician comes out and plugs in whatever wiring is necessary to get the video feed from your cameras going to their box, which sends those feeds over the internet to servers in the cloud. If the box can use your internet its cheaper. If t