Police are starting to use new surveillance technology all over Ohio, including drones, surveillance centers, AI and even robots.
The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office and the Dublin Police Department are two agencies deploying drones as pseudo-first responders starting this year. Dublin is also adding a pair of police robots first seen in New York City's subway tunnels.
The Columbus Division of Police will soon build a new "real-time crime center." These surveillance hubs can monitor government traffic cams, license plate readers and police body cameras. The hubs also can tap into privately-owned school and business cameras or residential doorbell cameras with permission from owners.
A murder case investigated by the Cleveland Division of Police has key evidence provided by artificial intelligence facial recognition software that was recently thrown out of court.
The buildup of police surveillance technology is worrying the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio. The group is concerned that police agencies using these emerging technologies will further erode privacy and create a surveillance state akin to "Big Brother," the character and symbol in George Orwell's dystopian novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four."
Police say this technology can aid first responders by helping first responders direct their resources to active scenes and even take their place in some situations. The technology can be used to find and track suspects and even help find key evidence at the scene of a crime.
Police drones and robots to patrol skies, parking garages and parks.
Hamilton County Sheriff's Office Lt. Steve Sabers said the department's fleet of 16 drones can be deployed at protests, used to respond to a shooting or just to spot a broken-down car on the highway before first responders arrive. The drones can even be sent to a scene autonomously.
“In lieu of an office powering it up, we're going to hear a call for service, and we'll be able to deploy the drone right from here without anybody doing anything," Sabers said.
When a drone operator demonstrated the flying camera to WOSU, it was able to zoom in close on a car at an intersection half a mile away and clearly see the vehicle's license plate.
Dublin Police are also using drones in a similar way. The agency just purchased four drones for about $500,000 that will be deployed from four spots in the city.
"We can have a drone over top of any location within the city of Dublin within 90 seconds or less to give our officers, dispatchers or Washington Township firefighters the ability to overview a scene before potentially even responders would arrive at a location," said Dublin Police Deputy Chief Greg Lattanzi.
The Columbus suburb is also setting up two robots with 360-degree cameras to patrol the public library's parking garage and a plaza near Bridge Park.
Lattanzi said the robots are expected to go live in the next two months.
"(It has) two-way communication features, so should somebody be in need of assistance — police, fire, medical — it could communicate through the robot directly to our communication center to request assistance from first responders," Lattanzi said.
Columbus Division of Police Deputy Chief Nicholas Konves said the city doesn't have plans to add drones to its aviation fleet, which includes four helicopters.
Cleveland Police, Hamilton County use AI to help identify suspects
Cleveland police and Cuyahoga County prosecutors got in trouble last year for their use of Clearview AI's facial recognition software in a court case involving the murder of Blake Story, according to cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. The AI company’s own guidelines say it should not be used as evidence in court.
Cleveland police did not respond to a request for comment.
In an appeal of the judge's ruling, the prosecutor's office argued the judge striking the evidence weakened the state’s case so much that it destroyed any reasonable possibility of effectively prosecuting the charge.
The prosecutor's office declined to comment further, saying their appeal speaks for itself.
Sabers said his office also uses this AI system, but not in the same way.
“Not facial recognition. Say 'Hey, I'm looking for a male white with a black shirt and blue jeans.' It can pick that up," Sabers said. "If I have a face, it knows nothing about what to do with that.”
Konves said the Columbus Division of Police doesn't use the technology.
Surveillance centers to bring all new technology together for Columbus police and Hamilton County
Columbus police's surveillance center project may end up looking a lot like Hamilton County's operation.
Konves said having an integrated surveillance system can help officers find evidence quickly when responding to a case. He said the department's current "real-time crime center" operations helped an officer find key evidence to solve a homicide last year.
“They're able to walk the sergeant (through a scene) and say 'Hey, the shell case should be right there,' and sure enough there's the shell casings. There's the scene. There's all the evidence. And he's able to then put crime scene tape up to secure that,” Konves said.
Sabers demonstrated their system, which showed a map of the county dotted with icons denoting different types of cameras officers can access. When he clicked on one camera, it showed a live view inside Bishop Moeller High School's gymnasium.
Sabers said the systems were useful during an active shooter threat at the high school last year. The threat turned out to be a false alarm.
"I was already outside the school and inside the school telling them everything looks good," Sabers said. "So that's really the end goal, is getting more and more businesses like this partnered up."
Sabers could click on other icons that would tune into police body cameras, traffic cameras or privately-owned business cameras. When he clicked on an icon for a Ring doorbell camera, it showed how to contact the owner of the camera so officials could ask permission to get ahold of footage.
Konves said the crime center will be used to help officers on all types of call, including locating missing people.
“There’s cameras everywhere. We use Ring cameras, doorbell cameras," Konves said. "There's a million different possibilities of where somebody might put a camera especially a private company. It's just gonna be what they are willing to share with us."
Sabers said Hamilton County is able to tune in to the drone cameras from the county's camera systems.
ACLU of Ohio argues new technology erodes what is left of privacy in the state
ACLU of Ohio Chief Lobbyist Gary Daniels said he thinks more unregulated surveillance technology in the hands of government will end up hurting the privacy of Ohio citizens. He said he thinks most, if not all, citizens' privacy has already been eroded, mostly due to how private companies use data.
“My fear is that it has eroded. It's not that these are somewhere down the line, this is going to present some real privacy problems. No, we are there and we have been there for quite a long time," Daniels said.
Adding a state law to regulate drones has been an effort Daniels tried to interest state legislators in for a number of years. He said every once in a while, a drone regulation bill does pop up at the Ohio Statehouse. The legislation just never happens to get very far.
Daniels said since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and even before, all levels of law enforcement have started integrating these technologies. He’s concerned about drones and cameras being used at protests or used to monitor places like gun stores, mosques, or possibly even gay bars.
“The burden should never be on the individual, on the citizen to say why they don't want the government following them around, why they don't want the government surveilling them. The burden always needs to be on the government as to why they think they need to do this," Daniels said.
Daniels thinks the Ohio legislature needs to pass laws to regulate the technology’s use in law enforcement. He said internal policies at sheriff's offices and police departments aren’t enough.
Sabers said there are ways to hold employees accountable so that cameras aren’t misused. He said the best way to alleviate privacy concerns is transparency.
“All of these systems have audit trails in place and everybody who's a part of it knows at any time we can run an audit and see what you're doing. So it kind of builds into the transparency portion," Sabers said.
Konves said law enforcement has had access to databases of people's personal information for decades. He said Columbus police go through rigorous background checks and also have to follow applicable state laws and internal policies.
"In reality, today's day and age, we are being recorded everywhere...you're walking down the street," Konves said. "There's hundreds of cameras everywhere. Law enforcement doesn't have access to all of those but... as society grows and technology grows, there's likely very little areas in the city of Columbus and nationwide that aren't covered by some type of camera."
Konves said the expectation of privacy has been in place since police first got binoculars.
"We at CPD do believe that guardrails are very important on this type of technology, and we ensure that we have guardrails in place for those things," Konves said.
Konves said if Columbus gets on board with any other new technology like drones, AI or robots, the department will update its policies.
"We will absolutely ensure that the public's expectation of privacy is preserved in any new technology that we onboard," he said.
Daniels said the legal landscape for this technology is like the wild, wild west. He also said even new laws may never make the ACLU completely comfortable with using this technology.
