Law Enforcement Technology

“Smart” Tech Coming to a City Near You
The data-driven smart tech trend extends far beyond our kitchens and living rooms. Will real-time sensors and data offer new solutions to the challenges cities face, or just exacerbate existing inequalities?
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Light-Based Defensive Device Could Help Stop Attacks from Assailants
In 2020, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries in the United States. Researchers have designed a device called Lightguard, which—when triggered by a well-placed button—can temporarily dazzle an assailant.
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Governments Are Using Science Fiction to Predict Potential Threats
From high-tech fighting machines to supercomputers and killer robots, science fiction has a lot to say about war. You might be surprised to learn that some governments are now turning their attention to these fantastical stories as a way to think about possible futures and try and ward off any potential threats.
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Investigators May Be Able to Use Household Dust as a Forensic Tool
A new study found it is possible to retrieve forensically relevant information from human DNA in household dust. After sampling indoor dust from 13 households, the researchers were able to detect DNA from household residents over 90% of the time, and DNA from non-occupants 50% of the time. The work could be a way to help investigators find leads in difficult cases.
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Lawmakers: “Clean Reauthorization” of Surveillance Authorities a “Nonstarter”
Key U.S. lawmakers are warning the country’s top intelligence officials that they could soon find themselves without a much-talked-about surveillance authority unless their agencies are able to prove they can be trusted.
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Next Generation 911 Interoperability
An estimated 240 million calls are routed to first responders every year via our country’s 911 system. It is critical that responders and operators have access to the best tools and resources available so that they can effectively answer these calls quickly and accurately and keep our communities safe. New testing and certification program, laboratory will improve the functionality of our national 911 system.
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2023 Border Security & Intelligence Summit
Defense Strategies Institute announced its 11th Annual Border Security & Intelligence Summit. This forum will bring together DHS, IC, Federal Agencies, and Industry to discuss the protection of U.S borders through enhanced technology and intelligence solutions.
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German Court to Rule About Phone Searches of Asylum-Seekers
Judges could announce this week if authorities broke the law when they combed an asylum-seeker’s phone to find out where she was from. The searches are common practice — and the ruling could have major consequences.
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EFF Files Amicus Briefs in Two Important Geofence Search Warrant Cases
Unlike traditional warrants for electronic records, a geofence warrant doesn’t start with a particular suspect or even a device or account; instead police request data on every device in a given geographic area during a designated time period, regardless of whether the device owner has any connection to the crime under investigation. The EFF argues these warrants are unconstitutional “general warrants” because they don’t require police to show probable cause to believe any one device was somehow linked to the crime under investigation.
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What Is Microstamping, and Can It Help Solve Shootings?
Laws to expand the technology’s use have passed in three states and the District of Columbia. But some are questioning its effectiveness.
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Portable Outdoor Gunshot Detection Technology for Law Enforcement
A new portable Gunshot Detection System can provide critical information about outdoor shooting incidents almost instantaneously to first responders.
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New ‘Faraday Cage’ Research Facility to Help Combat Digital Crime
University of Huddersfield installing a new facility named the ‘Faraday Cage’ which will help speed-up the development and testing of new digital forensic processes to help law enforcement meet the huge growth rate in digital crime.
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EFF's Atlas of Surveillance Database Now Documents 10,000+ Police Tech Programs
The EFF has created a searchable and mappable repository of which law enforcement agencies in the U.S. use surveillance technologies such as body-worn cameras, drones, automated license plate readers, and face recognition.
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Software Suite Will Bolster Defenses for Soft Targets
Anyone who has ever gone to a major sporting event or concert, taken public transportation, even visited a farmer’s market on a brisk weekend morning, has likely benefitted from soft-target physical security—and perhaps didn’t even know it. DHS S&T is working developing a suite of decision-support software known as Special Event Planning Tools (SEPT) to help those in charge of securing soft targets.
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U.K. Police Fail to Meet “Legal and Ethical Standards” in Use of Facial Recognition
Researchers devise an audit tool to test whether police use of facial recognition poses a threat to fundamental human rights, and analyze three deployments of the technology by British forces – with all three failing to meet “minimum ethical and legal standards.”
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