Planet Money
00:15:44 · S6, Amanda Aronczyk, Michael Bloomberg
[00:15:44] S6: You could opt to provide live access to your camera feeds, or you can register your camera locations for easy reference when assistance is needed. [00:15:54] S2: In the years that followed the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, the video network extended all across the city, and eventually, this public private model of shared camera networks becomes a model for other cities across the country. And then the NYPD has its biggest, boldest idea yet. What if we mix the chocolate with the peanut butter? We've got all this data. We also have this enormous network of cameras. What if we put it all together into a massive centralized platform? They bring in Microsoft to help. Just so you know, Microsoft is a sponsor of NPR. The NYPD then spends the next four years developing a platform with a military inspired name. [00:16:38] S7: Today, we're announcing the full launch of the domain awareness system. [00:16:43] S2: In 2012, former mayor Michael Bloomberg formally launched the domain awareness system from a secure command center. He is flanked by cops and surrounded by live video monitors. It's really giving Batcave. [00:16:56] S7: We're not your mom and pops police department anymore. We are in the next century. We are leading the pack. That's exactly what you would expect us to do.
00:16:56 · Michael Bloomberg, Amanda Aronczyk, Jessica Tisch
[00:16:56] S7: We're not your mom and pops police department anymore. We are in the next century. We are leading the pack. That's exactly what you would expect us to do. [00:17:07] S2: He wrapped up in Bloomberg Spanish. Anyway, the domain awareness system is a big part of why I had the experience I had on grand jury duty. Why grand juries today can watch videos from all over the city, from all kinds of cameras all edited together, and why the police can connect videos to people using license plate readers and geolocation. All that red string tying the story together, leading to names and ultimately arrests. Four years later, in 2016, the NYPD was a finalist for an international award for the domain awareness system. And at the award ceremony, a deputy commissioner, now commissioner, Jessica Tisch, she reveals the scale of what the domain awareness system can do and the extent of its reach. [00:18:02] S8: We currently have 2,000,000,000 license plate reads, a 100,000,000 summonses, fifty four million nine one one calls, 15,000,000 complaints, 12,000,000 detective reports, 11,000,000 arrest records, 2,000,000 warrants, and thirty days of video from 9,000 cameras. [00:18:21] S2: And this is just in New York. But she makes it clear that hundreds of other law enforcement agencies from dozens of other countries have come to tour the Batcave to learn from it. Police all over the country and the world are incorporating similar systems into their police departments.
00:18:21 · Amanda Aronczyk, Jessica Tisch
[00:18:21] S2: And this is just in New York. But she makes it clear that hundreds of other law enforcement agencies from dozens of other countries have come to tour the Batcave to learn from it. Police all over the country and the world are incorporating similar systems into their police departments. [00:18:39] S8: Let me emphasize. Every day, we have more than 10,000 cops using the analytics in DAS to inform their decision making. And this was a decade ago. [00:18:50] S2: Now way more cops use [00:18:51] S8: it. Using analytics, we can have a safer city and a fairer city too.
00:18:51 · Jessica Tisch, Amanda Aronczyk, Michelle Dahl
[00:18:51] S8: it. Using analytics, we can have a safer city and a fairer city too. [00:18:56] S2: Tisch said at the time that the domain awareness system was helping police reduce crime and prevent terrorist attacks. We reached out to the NYPD to see if commissioner Tisch or another rep from the NYPD would speak with us, and they declined to be recorded. But I did talk to a spokesperson, Bradley Weeks, about the details in this story. And he said that the domain awareness system has made New Yorkers safer. In a statement, they said, quote, anyone who has ever called 911 for help, been the victim of a crime, or who cares about their safety has benefited from this system, unquote. Today, New York is considered one of the safest cities in the country. Although sorting out whether that's because of population growth or economics or policing policy is kinda hard to do. When it comes to security cameras more broadly, a meta analysis of forty years worth of studies found that cameras do reduce car theft. But overall, it's not clear that more cameras equal less crime. Do you do... When you walk around, do you just see cameras? [00:20:05] S1: I do. I kind of can't help but spot them. [00:20:09] S2: Recently, I went on a sort of surveillance tech tour with Michelle Dahl, my fellow grand juror. [00:20:14] S1: Right here. There's another one there.
00:20:14 · Michelle Dahl, Amanda Aronczyk
[00:20:14] S1: Right here. There's another one there. [00:20:15] S2: Her group is very opposed to the NYPD's use of the domain awareness system. That's our third camera. Stop, her group, has recently sued a Yeah. City Go to seven there. Saying the system violates our constitutional rights to privacy and free speech. [00:20:28] S1: Yeah. Fourteen fifteen here. [00:20:30] S2: So they have done a lot of research on what the NYPD is using. [00:20:34] S1: If we wanna pause here, there's a really good view of the camera right up there. [00:20:40] S2: Michelle points upwards at a large tan box attached to a streetlight with an NYPD sticker. [00:20:45] S1: And it's got a little dome, so it's also likely a three sixty camera. We know that they can do a three sixty pan tilt zoom and basically one camera could cover an entire block and get good enough resolution to identify somebody's face on the entire city block. [00:21:02] S2: We then continue a couple of blocks and we stop in a park. A cop walks by. [00:21:07] S1: So this police officer is on his phone. Every police officer in the city can access the domain awareness system on their police issued phones. [00:21:15] S2: The NYPD said that not all officers can access video from their phones, but there's lots of other data. [00:21:21] S1: So if he came over here and stopped us, he could look us up and take our IDs and look up our profiles in the domain awareness system, which would show all the information they have about us, things like three one one calls, any past criminal records.
00:21:21 · Michelle Dahl, Amanda Aronczyk
[00:21:21] S1: So if he came over here and stopped us, he could look us up and take our IDs and look up our profiles in the domain awareness system, which would show all the information they have about us, things like three one one calls, any past criminal records. [00:21:36] S2: What are the odds that they have me in there? [00:21:38] S1: I mean, have you lived here for any period of time?