Law Enforcement Technology

ShotSpotter Improves Detection and Response to Gunfire, but Doesn't Reduce Crime, Research Finds
ShotSpotter gunfire detection technology has delivered as promised in terms of enabling police to quickly detect and respond to gunshots in two American cities, but the controversial technology has not translated into public safety gains.
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Seeing Behind the Mask
There is a need for face recognition to be able to “see behind the mask” for security and safety. Researchers discusses the potential of new software which will allow facial recognition to work despite the mask you use.
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A New Way to Detect Radiation Involving Cheap Ceramics
The radiation detectors used today for applications like inspecting cargo ships for smuggled nuclear materials are expensive and cannot operate in harsh environments, among other disadvantages. Work by MIT engineers could lead to plethora of new applications, including better detectors for nuclear materials at ports.
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Cops Running DNA-Manufactured Faces Through Face Recognition Is a Tornado of Bad Ideas
In keeping with law enforcement’s grand tradition of taking antiquated, invasive, and oppressive technologies, making them digital, and then calling it innovation, police in the U.S. recently combined two existing dystopian technologies in a brand new way to violate civil liberties.
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European Court of Human Rights Confirms: Weakening Encryption Violates Fundamental Rights
In a milestone judgment—Podchasov v. Russia—the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled that weakening of encryption can lead to general and indiscriminate surveillance of the communications of all users and violates the human right to privacy.
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Science Fiction Meets Reality: New Technique Overcome Obstructed Views
Using a single photograph, researchers created an algorithm that computes highly accurate, full-color three-dimensional reconstructions of areas behind obstacles – a concept that can not only help prevent car crashes, but help law enforcement experts in hostage situations, search-and-rescue and strategic military efforts.
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Charting the Future of Maritime Security
The United States is a maritime nation surrounded by 95,000 miles of shoreline. Changes in economics, geopolitics, society, demography, or other factors, pose varied and evolving threats to the country’s maritime space – its waterways, ports of entry, and coastline borders.
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Police Departments Are Turning to AI to Sift Through Millions of Hours of Unreviewed Body-Cam Footage
Body camera video equivalent to 25 million copies of “Barbie” is collected but rarely reviewed. Some cities are looking to new technology to examine this stockpile of footage to identify problematic officers and patterns of behavior.
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How Chicago Became an Unlikely Leader in Body-Camera Transparency
The city has a long history of brutal, violent policing, but its latest approach to body-worn cameras and police oversight could serve as a national model.
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The Hidden Cost of Being Branded a Terrorist by the U.S. Government
The FBI credits its Terror Watchlist with keeping the country safe, but critics point to the experience of thousands of innocent American Muslims who were swept up by a screening system, and then found themselves trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare as they tried to clear their names. The watchlist currently contains nearly two million names, of which about 15,000 are U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
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Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in Explosives, Narcotic Detection
DHS S&T is applying emerging technologies in the development of artificial intelligence / machine learning technologies – and searching for ways to use these technologies to identify dangerous compounds, like those found in explosives and narcotics.
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Utah Supreme Court Upholds Right to Refuse to Tell Cops Your Passcode
The Utah Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors violated a defendant’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination when they presented testimony about his refusal to give police the passcode to his cell phone. The Utah court’s opinion is the latest in a thicket of state supreme court opinions dealing with whether law enforcement agents can compel suspects to disclose or enter their passwords.
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What if Law Enforcement Could ‘See’ Through Walls?
New technology allows law enforcement to easily and safely identify whether any individuals are inside a room when direct line-of-sight is not an option. This is especially critical when conducting breaching operations, searching for trafficked individuals or in potential hostage situations, where the device gives responders precious intelligence and situational awareness while reducing the risk of physical harm to themselves.
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Preparing U.S., Partners for Radiological Response
After the September 11th attacks, security professionals worried that terrorists might detonate a “dirty bomb” – an explosive device enhanced with radiological source materials. Responders for this type of event had to be trained.
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EFF to Supreme Court: Fifth Amendment Protects People from Being Forced to Enter or Hand Over Cell Phone Passcodes to the Police
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) last week asked the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling undermining Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and find that constitutional safeguards prevent police from forcing people to provide or use passcodes for their cell phones so officers can access the tremendous amount of private information on phones.
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