The city of Austin is no longer considering using artificial intelligence to help catch people breaking into cars and committing other crimes at parks and greenbelts, at least for the time being.
Dozens of incidents, including car break-ins and stolen valuables, are reported at popular green spaces each year. Earlier this year, the city stepped up security measures, increasing police patrols and installing security cameras. Austin police in March also arrested 12 people in connection with car break-ins at public parks.
City officials were considering expanding the program through a $2 million contract with Utah-based LiveView Technologies, a security company that uses an artificial intelligence system to "analyze behavior” in camera footage, detecting potential crime. The Austin City Council was slated to vote on the contract in August, but city staff withdrew it from consideration just days before the meeting. The move came not long after the city ended its automatic license plate reader program over data privacy concerns.
Several residents, like Mackenzie Rhine, have expressed concern about how AI-enabled cameras track, store and share data.
“[This technology] opens the door to the potential for a lot of abuse by both law enforcement and bad-faith actors who may have access to this data, because the only secure data is data that doesn't exist," Rhine said. "You can never guarantee against hackers or people having access when they're not supposed to....”
Steve Lindsey, co-founder and chief information and technology officer of LiveView Technologies, said the company's system does not use facial recognition, but it is programmed to detect abnormal behavior, like someone going from car to car pulling on door handles.
“It is looking for activities that a normal person would not do, and typically, somebody who is up to no good typically would do something like that,” Lindsey said.
If a camera flags something suspicious, it gives a verbal warning to the person in the footage and alerts police if necessary. Lindsey said about 70% of the time, the initial warning will deter the person before police intervention is necessary.
“What we are trying to do is be a force multiplier for police who have scarce resources so they can focus on the high priority calls …," he said. "Most people, when they hear that alert, they will go away.”
In the event police are called, the company sends them an alert with a video clip, and it's up to law enforcement to decide how to respond and store that information.
It is not clear if the contract with LiveView Technologies will come back before the Austin City Council.
