ALBERTA, Canada — A city in Canada is testing an AI-enhanced body camera’s ability to recognize faces from a database of nearly 7,000 people on a “high risk” watchlist, the Associated Press reported.
The Axon cameras are intended to enhance officer safety at the Edmonton Police Service by enabling them to detect individuals who have a “flag or caution.” Categories for the cautions include “violent or assaultive; armed and dangerous; weapons; escape risk; and high-risk offender,” Kurt Martin, acting superintendent of the Edmonton Police Service, told the AP.
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The list so far includes 6,341 people, with a separate list containing 724 people who have at least one serious criminal warrant, according to the report.
About 50 officers wearing the equipped body cameras will not know if the software has matched a face, Martin told the AP. The outputs made by the cameras will be analyzed for accuracy at the station.
“Obviously, it gets dark pretty early here,” Martin said. “Lighting conditions, our cold temperatures during the wintertime, all those things will factor into what we’re looking at in terms of a successful proof of concept.”
Axon said it previously backed away from the use of facial recognition technology in 2019, with board members stating that the tech posed serious ethical concerns.
Axon founder and CEO Rick Smith stated that the pilot program is not a product launch, but rather an early stage of field research to assess performance and necessary safeguards, according to the report.
