Results of Cambridge Microphone Installation Discussions

[trysha.livejournal.com]

From my last post, I followed this and did some research..

The Department of Homeland Security has given Cambridge (and other cities) a grant to install "shot spotter" technology around in urban areas.
My understanding is that this coming to Somerville soon.

This is a series of microphones placed on poles all across the city that constantly analyze the sounds in the area. Once the system detects a sound pattern that matches a "gunshot" it triangulates the location and sends this information to the police. It saves the recording of this event and the system operators have access to this recorded data.

The Cambridge police have assured us that this can only detect high decibel events.
However, this system is capable of recording voices (at least loud ones).

Now, I know that Cambridge and Somerville police are not plotting nefarious schemes here.
They are excited about cool new toys and cool ways of helping people.

Let's step back for a second.
The police are placing microphones across the city and then saying "trust us, we will only use this to help find gunshots". The good guys have this today.

As a software engineer I can make reasonable guesses as to how the system works. Let's just say that I am concerned.

The shot spotter website:
http://www.shotspotter.com/news/article/producers-blog-privacy-and-security-in-the-balance
Essentially says (paraphrased) "You have no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public area, you give your info to advertisers all the time anyway, so what does it matter".

Comments

[keithn.livejournal.com]

I 110% support installing shot spotters in Somerville. I am also a software engineer, which is entirely irrelevant.

Even if "the bad guys" (what?) take over the shot spotter system, when you are shouting so loud that a shot spotter detects your voice, I think you have completely lost any reasonable expectation of privacy related to the content of that audio.

[teko.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Yes.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

I agree, I also think the civil liberties angle is more of a slippery slope argument at this point that can be eliminated by calling our representatives/councilors/etc. about ensuring safeguards are put in place. Though, I'm pretty sure the constitution has taken care of most of that as well.

[kelkyag]

Civil liberties and new technologies can take rather a while to be sorted out. I'd rather see rules what data is collected, how long it is stored, and who has what access with or without a warrant discussed before such a system is installed than afterward.