The new frontier of automotive surveillance appears to have arrived. Texas now has garbage trucks (and other vehicles) equipped with AI-powered cameras that are supposed to evaluate properties to determine which Dallas residents need to be issued government fines. As the trucks run their usual route, the system is supposed to be giving each lot scores — which determine what kind of action the city might take against the relevant property owners.
Based on reporting from a local NBC affiliate, Dallas residents have been subjected to the new “blight score” since April. But this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of the program. Cape Coral, Florida had pitched an identical program to residents at the start of the summer.
In both cases, the public response has been overwhelmingly negative and a company called City Detect exists at the center of it. Dallas has a $2.5-million contract with the business that seeks to amass data about neighborhoods via cameras mounted on the side of garbage trucks. The system tracks properties and assigns them what is effectively a social credit score, something that was broadly mocked as totalitarian in the United States just a few years earlier.
Low scores are determined primarily by code violations. However, partnered cities may also have the option to track things that aren’t outright illegal. Even if an overgrown lawn or poorly maintained residence doesn’t technically qualify as breaking the law, the municipal government may still opt to use those things as markers before sending over a representative to check up on the property.
One supposes that the program should be effective in what it’s trying to accomplish: identifying urban decay so it can be dealt with. Camera equipped trash trucks, dedicated code enforcement vehicles, and even police cars will amass data by simply driving around while automated tools determine which parts of town are looking a little shoddy or seem poised to be high-crime areas. City Detect then shares the information and the local government decides how best to respond.
But it’s also another instance of widespread government surveillance that exists in a legal gray area. The Fourth Amendment protects American citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures by the state. As we’ve already seen with Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs), outsourcing those searches to private companies has given government actors some plausible deniability. Governments get widespread public surveillance that effectively place everyone under permanent investigation and the relevant companies get a sizable contract while they presumably get to do some data harvesting of their own.
City Detect has asserted that there’s no assurance of privacy in public spaces, which includes the side of the road. This is true. You could stand on a street corner and record passersby all day without running afoul of the law. The First Amendment guarantees a citizen’s ability to petition the government, in addition to freedom of religion, speech, expression, an independent press, and assembly. However, it’s the last two items where things start to get a little fuzzy.
While Americans have these rights, they’re not technically something that’s extended to their government. One could even argue that widespread surveillance could undermine the public’s right to free assembly or expression. It’s certainly something that’s been done before.
Countless successful lawsuits have been launched against the federal, state, and local governments over the years for surveilling various groups in ways that could have arguably been used to discriminate against them based upon their political/religious affiliations or how they opted to express themselves. And that was without this technology kicking things into overdrive.
By using companies like Flock Safety, Axon, or City Detect as a legal buffer, the mounting concern is that the government is actively violating the Fourth Amendment by abusing the spirit of the First. In an effort to assuage concerns, City Detect has stated that its cameras automatically blur the faces of any humans captured from the road. But there’s not much goodwill left with the public after recurring examples of law enforcement agents abusing Flock’s AI-assisted network came to light. Flock’s leadership has likewise habitually misled the public about what its camera network actually does.
Public opposition to these companies, and the government actors that are paying millions for their services, only seems to be growing. There are now groups of activists and independent journalists that go around recording employees of these surveillance firms (primarily Flock) to drive home the point that nobody wants to be monitored. Those efforts have yielded some interesting responses, including trying to use the police to stop them from being recorded in public.
The irony could not be thicker.
In addition to the sizable privacy concerns, there have also been complaints that the tax dollars being spent on these contracts are eliminating jobs. City Detect’s arrangement with Dallas amounts to an estimated $2.5 million and it’s hardly the only place that’s spending that kind of money. The company has (or is on the cusp of having) similar deals within Atlanta, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; Cleveland, Ohio; Miami-Dade County, Florida; Cathedral City, California; Stockton, California; and other municipalities.
We’ve already seen automakers leverage vehicle connectivity to amass a previously unimaginable amount of information about their customers. What was once treated as laughably paranoid has since become commonplace within the industry. Other sectors (e.g. consumer electronics) are following suit, with there also being a whole roster of novel businesses now dedicated entirely to AI-backed roadway surveillance — and these are all businesses, not charities.
While the government-related programs aren’t widely promoted as money making ventures, one can safely assume that the companies selling them to government agencies at least hinted at there being an increased amount of fines. This has always been the promise of speed cameras and the more modern ALPRs, especially when paired with automated enforcement.
The nagging question is whether or not all of the above results in a net positive for society. Recent video leaks have shown Flock Security employees teaching police how to use the network to surveil and identify political protestors. Despite assurances that the cameras would only be used for traffic enforcement, they’ve already gone beyond that initial scope. The same could be true of the cameras affixed to garbage trucks and City Detect’s so-called “blight score.”
Your author similarly has doubts that the system is even necessary, since it's not as if a regular person cannot identify a bad neighborhood by simply spending some time there. It's genuinely hard to believe that Dallas needs to spend millions of dollars for a company to tell it which parts of town are in poor condition. One simply needs to look around and identify the hallmarks of neglected infrastructure.
Mass surveillance and social credit scores were something Americans broadly mocked the Chinese for less than a decade ago. But the United States is actively implementing the same tools for arguably the same purposes, just with its own Western flavor. That’s not to suggest City Detect doesn’t have altruistic inspirations. But the potential for mission creep is basically unlimited with these kinds of businesses. The system may be tracking broken sidewalks and graffiti today only to pivot to something more nefarious tomorrow.
Unless you’re equipping your vehicle with frequency jammers, something the FCC would deem highly illegal, there’s likely no getting around there being more cameras on the road. While the focus here is on garbage trucks and ALPRs, every new automobile on the market is likewise equipped with exterior cameras and an internet connection.
The ideal solution is to pressure government officials against signing contracts with firms that are dedicated to roadway surveillance. While this is something that has already pressured hundreds of communities to abandon Flock contracts, new companies are always on the horizon that are poised to turn the entire nation into one big Home Owners Association.
Laws could likewise be passed that would disallow the kinds of AI-backed networks from being used by governments. But few legislators have signaled any willingness to do so thus far, which may explain why physically disabling pole-mounted cameras has become so popular. However, this isn’t something that can be realistically done with the garbage trucks. They provide an essential service to the community and are constantly on the move — which may explain why some cities have taken an interest in using them for surveillance.
[Images: Karolis Kavolelis/Shutterstock; City Detect; Matthew G Eddy/Shutterstock; Del Harper/Shutterstock; BCFC/Shutterstock]
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