If you require any further information or clarification on this issue, please contact the investigating officer that sent you the submission request.

The post was written by Laura Vidal (PhD), independent researcher in learning and digital rights.This is part two of a series. Part one on surveillance and control around the July election is here.Over the past decade, the government in Venezuela has meticulously constructed a framework of surveillance...

In its recent report, Civil Rights Implications of Face Recognition Technology (FRT), the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights identified serious problems with the federal government’s use of face recognition technology, and in doing so recognized EFF’s expertise on this issue. The Commission focused its investigation on the Department of...

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The exploration and use of technology is essential for WRPS to meet its obligations to the community regarding public safety, including the prevention and investigation of crimes, as well as to improve overall administration. Technologies assessments protect privacy and security while ensuring the public has access to police information, as outlined in the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA).

Law enforcementDrone Association

Drones are also increasingly tied into other forms of surveillance. More departments — including those in Las Vegas, Louisville, and New York City — are toying with the idea of dispatching drones in response to ShotSpotter gunshot detection alerts, which are known to send many false positive alerts. This could lead to drone surveillance of communities that happen to have a higher concentration of ShotSpotter microphones or other acoustic gunshot detection technology. Data revealed recently shows that a disproportionate number of these gunshot detection sensors  are located in Black communities in the United States. Also, artificial intelligence is also being added to drone data collection; connecting what's gathered from the sky to what has been gathered on the street and through other methods is a trending part of the police panopticon plan.

Feb 8, 2021 — 1907: The world's first quadcopter was created by inventor brothers Jacques and Louis Bréguet, working with controversial Nobel Prize winner Professor Charles ...

California law enforcement should take note: the state’s Attorney General has issued a new bulletin advising them on how to comply with AB 481—a state law that regulates how law enforcement agencies can use, purchase, and disclose information about military equipment at their disposal. This important guidance comes...

Artificial intelligence dominated the technology talk on panels, among sponsors, and across the trade floor at this year’s annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP).IACP, held Oct. 19 - 22 in Boston, brings together thousands of police employees with the businesses who want to sell them...

Law enforcement dronesfor Sale

It’s clear that as the skies open up for more drone usage, law enforcement will push to procure more of these flying surveillance tools. But police and lawmakers must exercise far more skepticism over what may ultimately prove to be a flashy trend that wastes resources, infringes on people's rights, and results in unforeseen shifts in policing strategy. The public must be kept aware of how cops are coming for their privacy from above.

The mission of a Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) is to provide a law enforcement agency with the ability to capitalize on a wide and expanding range of ...

© 2017 Waterloo Regional Police Service, 200 Maple Grove Road, P.O. Box 3070, Cambridge, ON N3H 5M1, Emergency: 911, Non-Emergency: 519-570-9777

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Please visit Axon Public Safety Canada directly for information on their privacy considerations and security:  https://www.axon.com/axon-citizen-privacy-policy and https://www.axon.com/security/axon-evidence.

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While some might take for granted that the government is not allowed to conduct surveillance — intentional, incidental, or otherwise — on you in spaces like your fenced-in backyard, this is not always the case. It took a lawsuit and a recent Alaska Supreme Court decision to ensure that police in that state must obtain a warrant for drone surveillance in otherwise private areas. While some states do require a warrant to use a drone to violate the privacy of a person’s airspace, Alaska, California, Hawaii, and Vermont are currently the only states where courts have held that warrantless aerial surveillance violates residents’ constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure absent specific exceptions.

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Axon Public Safety Canada manages our DEMS platform through a Canadian cloud-based system. The system has established organizational-wide controls to ensure secure storage, transfer and disposal of all digital records.  These controls govern any wrongful access, attempts to defeat security measures, and inappropriate or personal use of this infrastructure.

Can police usedroneswithout a warrant

This post was written by Gowri Nayar, an EFF legal intern. Imagine driving to get your nails done with your family and all of a sudden, you are pulled over by police officers for allegedly driving a stolen car. You are dragged out of the car and detained at gun...

It provides capacity to capture, store, manage and share large audio and video files, including those recorded and shared through cell phones, 9-1-1 audio, interview room and body-worn cameras, as well as photographs.  It allows the public to upload evidence related to an investigation directly to our system without the inconvenience of waiting for an officer to attend in person to collect the files.

Axon Community allows critical evidence to be submitted securely by the community into the WRPS DEMs system, where the software's powerful features will create a chain of custody for all forms of digital evidence anywhere in the province. Files submitted through any Axon Community link will undergo a scan for viruses when the files are ingested into system.

The WRPS Digital Evidence Management System (DEMs) is a Canadian cloud-based platform that allows police to store, manage, transfer and share digital evidence across all public safety agencies.  Axon Public Safety Canada operates this platform, also known as Evidence.com and Axon Evidence.  The Province of Ontario, on behalf of all police services, procured this cloud-based technology to modernize evidence sharing securely amongst justice sector partners and the general public.

Law enforcementdrone policy

DFR programs have been growing in popularity since first launched by the Chula Vista Police Department in 2018. Now there are a few dozen departments with known DFR programs among the approximately 1,500 police departments known to have any drone program at all, according to EFF’s Atlas of Surveillance, the most comprehensive dataset of this kind of information. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulates use of drones and is currently mandated to prepare new regulations for how they can be operated beyond the operator’s line of sight (BVLOS), the kind of long-distance flight that currently requires a special waiver. All the while, police departments and the companies that sell drones are eager to move forward with more DFR initiatives.

Police usingdronesfor surveillance

Law enforcement wants more drones, and we’ll probably see many more of them overhead as police departments seek to implement a popular project justifying the deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs): the “drone as first responder” (DFR).

RMUS heavy duty police Drone

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Chula Vista's "Drone-Related Activity Dashboard" indicates that more than 20 percent of drone flights are welfare checks or mental health crises, while only roughly 6% are responding to assault calls. Chula Vista Police claim that the DFR program lets them avoid potentially dangerous or deadly interactions with members of the public, with drone responses resulting in their department avoiding sending a patrol unit in response to 4,303 calls. However, this theory and the supporting data needs to be meaningfully evaluated by independent researchers.

DFR programs are just one way police are acquiring drones, but law enforcement and UAV manufacturers are interested in adding drones in other ways, including as part of regular patrols and in response to high-speed vehicle pursuits. These uses also create the risk of law enforcement bypassing important safeguards.  Reasonable protections for public privacy, like robust use policies, are not a barrier to public safety but a crucial part of ensuring just and constitutional policing.

“For residents we spoke to,” Wired wrote, “the discrepancy raises serious concerns about the accuracy and reliability of the department's transparency efforts—and experts say the use of the drones is a classic case of self-perpetuating mission creep, with their existence both justifying and necessitating their use.”

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WRPS is committed to assessing the impacts of new and existing technology, procedures and programs with access and privacy at the forefront, as well as to ensure compliance with the Criminal Code of Canada, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Police Services Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and any other relevant laws or legislation.  As such, information is collected through lawful authority, judicial authorization or upon consent.

In practice, law enforcement's desire to get “a view of the scene” becomes a justification for over-surveilling neighborhoods that produce more 911 calls and for collecting information on anyone who happens to be in the drone’s path. For example, a drone responding to a vandalism case may capture video footage of everyone it passes along the way. Also, drones are subject to the same mission-creep issues that already plague other police tools designed to record the public; what is pitched as a solution to violent crime can quickly become a tool for policing homelessness or low-level infractions that otherwise wouldn't merit police resources.

Companies are eager to tap this growing market. Police technology company Axon —known for its Tasers and body-worn cameras — recently acquired drone company Dedrone, specifically citing that company’s efforts to push DFR programs as one reason for the acquisition. Axon since has established a partnership with Skydio in order to expand their DFR sales.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into our criminal justice system is one of the most worrying developments across policing and the courts, and EFF has been tracking it for years. EFF recently contributed a chapter on AI’s use by law enforcement to the American Bar Association’s annual publication, ...

We continue our commitment to providing the community with responsive policing services that foster a relationship of trust and transparency.

With their birds-eye view, drones can observe individuals in previously private and constitutionally protected spaces, like their backyards, roofs, and even through home windows. And they can capture crowds of people, like protestors and other peaceful gatherers exercising their First Amendment rights. Drones can be equipped with cameras, thermal imaging, microphones, license plate readers, face recognition, mapping technology, cell-site simulators, weapons, and other payloads. Proliferation of these devices enables state surveillance even for routine operations and in response to innocuous calls —situations unrelated to the original concerns of terrorism or violent crime originally used to justify their adoption.

You or your organization may have recently received an invitation to upload digital evidence through an external link provided by the Waterloo Regional Police Service.  The information below provides some background on the privacy and security behind this request.

Dec 9, 2012 — 1952: The first stun-gun design is proposed for U.S. Army commando operations. 1964: An electrified club is developed for law enforcement use in ...

Full tamper-proof evidence audit records are created that cannot be edited or changed, even by account administrators.  Evidence data is encrypted in transit and while at rest in storage.

The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which handles all prosecutions in the Seattle area, has instructed police in no uncertain terms: do not use AI to write police reports...for now. This is a good development. We hope prosecutors across the country will exercise such caution as companies continue to...

The Federal Trade Commission has entered a settlement with self-styled “weapon detection” company Evolv, to resolve the FTC’s claim that the company “knowingly” and repeatedly” engaged in “unlawful” acts of misleading claims about their technology. Essentially, Evolv’s technology, which is in schools, subways, and stadiums, does far less...

This type of analysis is not possible without transparency around the program in Chula Vista, which, to its credit, publishes regular details like the location and reason for each of its deployments. Still, that department has also tried to prevent the public from learning about its program, rejecting California Public Records Act (CPRA) requests for drone footage. This led to a lawsuit in which EFF submitted an amicus brief, and ultimately the California Court of Appeal correctly found that drone footage is not exempt from CPRA requests.

Please review the Evidence Submission Request FAQ’s at the bottom of this letter for information on frequent questions or concerns on the security of your submission.

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Transparency around the acquisition and use of drones will be important to the effort to protect civilians from government and police overreach and abuse as agencies commission more of these flying machines. A recent Wired investigation raised concerns about Chula Vista’s program, finding that roughly one in 10 drone flights lacked a stated purpose, and for nearly 500 of its recent flights, the reason for deployment was an “unknown problem.” That same investigation also found that each average drone flight exposes nearly 5,000 city residents to enhanced surveillance, primarily in predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods.

Clear policies around the use of drones are a valuable part of holding police departments accountable for their drone use. These policies must include rules around why a drone is deployed and guardrails on the kind of footage that is collected, the length of time it is retained, and with whom it can be shared.

If the files submitted are required as evidence in a court proceeding, they will be retained in accordance with existing evidence retention periods.

Police DFR programs involve a fleet of drones, which can range in number from four or five to hundreds. In response to 911 calls and other law enforcement calls for service, a camera-equipped drone is launched from a regular base (like the police station roof) to get to the incident first, giving responding officers a view of the scene before they arrive. In theory and in marketing materials, the advance view from the drone will help officers understand the situation more thoroughly before they get there, better preparing them for the scene and assisting them in things such as locating wanted or missing individuals more quickly. Police call this “situational awareness.”

Any digital files submitted for an investigation but not used as evidence to support a prosecution are retained for a 30-month period.  This takes into consideration the current civil limitation period of 24 months plus the time to serve a claim of 6 months.

HxGN OnCall Dispatch | Viewer provides a simple, cost-effective way to extend access to live dispatch information and basic functions while taking pressure off ...

Aug 12, 2023 — Check for Overheating: If the device has been exposed to high temperatures or direct sunlight, it might not charge or turn on until it cools ...

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Axon Community is the application WRPS officers use within our DEMS platform to send electronic invitations to witnesses to upload photographic or video evidence into our secure storage cloud, without confiscating phones/devices or setting appointments to gather hard copies of these files.  This reduces the need for the use of DVD’s, USB’s, or any other transportable method that ultimately increases the risk of a privacy breach through lost media or storage of personal information in multiple locations.