Axon’s Fusus Plattform ist als neues Überwachungssystem nach den Flock-Kameras von Interesse.

When Flock cameras are taken down, either by an angry mob or by someone with a chainsaw (guy with a Sawzall), the Fusus platform from Axon, which is a surveillance system that replaces FlockOS, comes in. Like FlockOS, Fusus is designed to bring together multiple separate surveillance sources in a single central panel that police can access. But unlike Flock’s system, which is already leading to unprecedented levels of privacy violations (NPR notes), Fusus works with a variety of tools used by police, not just the company’s proprietary cameras. These tools include body cameras, dashcams in police cars, 911 emergency call recordings, sound-based gunshot detectors, police drones, and CCTV footage, according to the NPR source.

“I watched the discussion on Flock with some surprise,” Ferguson tells the publisher: “Because real-time crime centers are not just made up of ALPR cameras and sensors; they also include video analytics and drones, and it shows that creating a single-pane-of-glass visual window into what’s going on in a city, along with the machine capabilities to go back and investigate the crime, is one way to do it.” One of the pivotal role played by these real-time crime centers was in the false arrest of Qeyeon Tolbert in Cleveland. Albert was charged with murder based on an AI-powered report that claimed there was a possible match, combining social media data, CCTV footage, and a rap album cover. The pivotal search warrant, described as a “warrant to hell,” was later invalidated by a judge, on the grounds that a single AI report alone did not constitute probable cause.

But the police’s responses to systems like Fusus are not reassuring; their focus is clearly on making their jobs easier, rather than protecting privacy and civil liberties.

“Instead of going to thousands of different systems, thousands of different places, we can get all the answers in one place, almost instantly,” boasts Quincy Whitner, the chief of the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, to NPR.

Rachel Levinson-Waldman, director of the Program on Liberty and National Security at New York University, points out that ease of use is precisely the point.

“In addition to the fact that certain elements of the crime (criminal predicate) must be present to initiate an investigation, there is an organic friction that imposes certain restrictions,” explains Levinson-Waldman: “As this friction is removed, it becomes increasingly easier to conduct investigations, including looking at people and even extracting large-scale information.”