'Privacy is more and more threatened:' What's the limit on public surveillance?

Christy Strawser (0:00)

The day's biggest stories, the people behind the headlines, the conversations you won't hear anywhere else.

I'm Christy Strawser, you're listening to Audacy's On Deadline. Flock cameras, publicly funded cameras that read faces and license plates and track people across communities. Those were everywhere and then a wave rose up against them. Cops were charged with using them to track exes. Others said their privacy was invaded. So where are we with license plate readers? Here's Phil Matier in the Bay Area.

Andrew Schwartz (0:27)

When do these things actually work?

Phil Matier (0:30)

And the question is being raised because of this entire issue of cameras.

We're hearing the expression, you know, the biggest proponent of these cameras is the company called Flock, which has them all over the state. And now the battle cry out there is get the Flock out of here. And it's an issue in Richmond, like a lot of cities, they decided to get rid of Flock or move away from them over concerns that there was too easy access by outside agencies, like the feds and such, to get at them, and other concerns about privacy. Then they're taking a look at getting them back, maybe with a different company, because law enforcement, these things are really a proven tool that helps law enforcement.

Between license plate readers and drones, we've seen a tremendous drop in crime and an increase in arrests because you can track the bad guys, you can track them, you can get on them and catch them. We've got these cameras in 230 various cities and counties across the state. There are estimates of between 9,000 and 15,000 of them out there. And it's got the public a little bit on edge, a lot on edge, over abuses possibly by outside agencies like ICE using them, or even rogue cops going after them and using them to say search and stalk girlfriends or other violations. And it's got more cities saying we either take a look at these, or we get rid of these, or do they work. It is becoming a big issue.

Andrew Schwartz (1:56)

Yeah, it really is interesting.

James Coleman (1:57)

I mean, there's really no denying that they can help with crime, but there's really no denying that in some cases, they've been abused.

Phil Matier (2:06)

It's absolutely true. And there was a lot of controversy back and forth about body cameras for police, because on one hand, they showed police misconduct and everybody was watching those and saying these are the great things. And then the cameras started showing the actual situation that the police were involved in, and they started getting the cops off the hook. So it's a double-edged sword. But yes, one of the issues is the misuse of these. And I was just talking with a law enforcement person I know this morning about this, and he said, look, any police tool, whether it be a squad car or a gun or anything, has the chances it could be misused. Excessive force could be misused. But what you have to do is you have to get discipline in on the cops. You have to show that you violate the rules. You really get yourself in hot water. And that's going to take some time because you're always going to have a few bad apples out there. And in this case, they're really making it bad for everybody because people are hypersensitive about being watched all the time. It's not just the flock cameras.

It's the red light cameras. It's your cell phone. It's the whole idea that whether it's communist China or the police or the last time you visited Costco, you bought something, the next thing you know, your phone is getting bombarded with sales pitches. People are feeling like their privacy is more and more threatened.

Christy Strawser (3:34)

AI fuels those cameras, and many are discussing what happens when AI starts making its own decisions. Here's Tommy Tucker in New Orleans.

Phil Matier (3:43)

Andrew Schwartz, Professor of IT in the EJ USO College of Business at LSU. I'm worried about AI. Tell me about what they're talking about at the UN, and what should they be talking about?

Andrew Schwartz (3:54)

Up to this point, if we've all been using ChatGBT or Gemini or in Facebook, they have AI. All of those are directed by us. But the next classification of technology for an AI perspective is called agentic AI. An agentic AI is a little bit different than generative AI, which is what we've been using in the past. And with agentic AI, it actually conducts an action on your behalf. So you kind of tell it what to do and it figures out how to get there.