Having served in law enforcement for most of my career, I understand the impulse that public safety and other government agencies have around remaining silent on their tradecraft. Those individuals that would do us the most harm are always looking to understand how the police respond to and investigate crimes. However, as law enforcement becomes increasingly proactive in securing the safety of their citizens, the status quo of transparency, or rather the lack thereof, needs to be revisited.
When police were primarily focused on post event investigations, concealment of their operations, investigative techniques, evidence collection, and interview strategies made a great deal of sense. The exposure would likely give offenders the tools and knowledge they needed to hinder law enforcement's efforts, destroy evidence, and avoid prosecution. In fact, a level of secrecy around these types of functions is still incredibly important. However, we are no longer in the age of public safety being only reactive. Having seen substantial reductions in crime over the past few decades, police departments around the world have become largely proactive, looking to prevent and deter criminal behavior. Developments in technology, data gathering techniques, and analytical capabilities have become driving forces of change in law enforcement activities, bringing with them new challenges.
The past few years, the rapid adoption of new technology by governmental agencies has come under increased scrutiny. The public, largely in the dark on what types of surveillance they may be subjected to, are rightly concerned, and the police, who have spent the past hundred years avoiding discussion on their tactics, are keeping quiet. This dynamic cannot persist, and will only result in the broad dissemination of misinformation that sows distrust and makes any eventual mutual understanding even more difficult. Nowhere is this effect more noticeable than with facial recognition. FR technology has seen exponential advancement just in the last few years, and the public has had little time to understand its impacts to privacy. Concurrently, law enforcement, in their eagerness to protect life and pursue criminals, are quick to adopt the new technology.
The simple fact is that there is a distinct difference between reactive and proactive policing. Generally, the public has had minimal concerns around police leveraging technology to investigate a crime, identify a suspect, and apprehend the offender. In these cases, police efforts are extremely focused and targeted, and the risk of infringement of privacy against an innocent individual is low. Conversely, attempts to disrupt and prevent criminal behavior prior to the commission of a crime are, by definition, broadly applied. Here, uninvolved citizens are routinely observed and investigated, even if only briefly, without their knowledge. While this type of police interaction can, and likely should, still be acceptable, the public expects, and deserves, to be a part of the overall discussion.
In 2008, I helped draft a series of privacy guidelines around the public safety technology being implemented by the New York Police Department in support of its Domain Awareness System (DAS), a vast surveillance apparatus that would become a first of its kind situational awareness, analytic, and data democratization platform. At the time, I did not fully understand the unprecedented nature of what we were publishing. Never before had the NYPD, or likely any police agency, been so forthcoming about such an important law enforcement tool. This document, which was developed in collaboration with the community and released for public comment, detailed the policies and procedures that would govern the department's use of this technology. In addition, it described data retention policies, access restrictions, safeguards, and methods for accountability. Overall, the privacy guidelines built a foundation of trust between the NYPD and the citizens of New York City, without which, the DAS program would likely have not survived.
Law enforcement must learn from this example of transparency. It is possible to build a supportive dialog between police and the community around technology and privacy, and that discourse does not have to negatively impact those public safety programs. Without this discussion, the public is susceptible to misinformation, and once a narrative has formed, true or not, it is nearly impossible to unset. In extreme instances, those narratives will persist and fuel damaging legislation, such as the case in San Francisco. The only solution is to be proactive, not just in policing, but in transparency.
Michael is a retired police captain and former commander of the New York City Police Department’s Strategic Technology Division, where he led the development and implementation of all public safety technology platforms. Having formerly served in patrol, crime analysis, intelligence, and counterterrorism roles, Michael leveraged this subject matter expertise to establish an IT transformation team that revolutionized the NYPD’s applications, systems, and infrastructure, bringing the Department into 21st century policing. Currently, Michael leads the public safety business for 22nd Century Technologies, bringing his two decades of experience enabling transformational change in public safety by improving agencies’ utilization of technology and evolving their operational culture. Michael holds an MBA from the University of Arizona, a Masters in Computer Information Systems from Boston University, and a Bachelors in Sociology from the University at Albany. He is also a frequent speaker on public safety technology and a published author of situational awareness and data analytic research.