Inside Amazon’s Push To Get Cops Using AI Surveillance

Key Concepts Amazon Web Services (AWS), AI Surveillance, Police Tech Market, Object Detection, Facial Recognition, Cloud Infrastructure, Real-Time Crime Centers, Public Records Requests, Partner Ecosystem, Data Aggregation, Gun Detection, License Plate Readers, Inmate Call Monitoring.

Amazon's Aggressive Push into the Police Tech Market

Amazon is making an aggressive push into the $11 billion police tech market, leveraging its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure and AI capabilities through both direct offerings and an expanding network of partner surveillance tools. The company's strategy involves actively courting law enforcement agencies across the West Coast, promoting technologies designed to enhance surveillance, data analysis, and operational efficiency.

Case Study: San Diego County Sheriff's Office

In mid-2023, the San Diego County Sheriff's Office sought to improve its drone surveillance operations. AWS pitched a prototype of an AI tool capable of detecting weapons or any object of interest in live surveillance photos and video, sending text alerts to officers with precise locations. While San Diego County took a demo, they ultimately passed on Amazon's direct AI tool. Similarly, after testing Amazon's Twitch gaming platform software for live-streaming drone footage, the agency opted for Nomad Media.

However, Amazon still benefits from this deal. Nomad Media is closely partnered with AWS, running its software on the AWS cloud. Furthermore, Nomad's object detection capabilities, should San Diego or other customers choose to use them, are powered by Amazon's AI image and video analysis service, Recognition. Nomad CEO Adam Miller confirmed this partnership, stating, "We use a tremendous number of their AWS services. It's a model that's working well for Amazon and its partners..." This demonstrates Amazon's strategy of embedding its technology even when agencies choose third-party providers.

Amazon's Law Enforcement and School Safety Team

Amazon's dedicated law enforcement and school safety team, led by a former police officer from Washington State, is at the forefront of this aggressive market expansion. The team actively courts new customers at conferences and parties attended by local and federal law enforcement. They promote Amazon's own products alongside a growing array of partner surveillance tools, all of which run on Amazon's vast cloud infrastructure.

Key Surveillance Technologies and Partners

Amazon's ecosystem of surveillance tools and partners includes:

• Flock Safety: A $7.5 billion startup specializing in car tracking technology, including license plate readers.
• Lucidus Tech (now owned by Flock): Provides AI for piecing together massive datasets, boasting over 120 billion records on U.S. citizens, which cops can use to search for Social Security numbers, addresses, emails, and more.
• C3AI: A $1.5 billion market cap company offering a collection of apps designed for use in Real-Time Crime Centers (surveillance hubs).
• Revier Technologies: A smaller startup also contributing to surveillance solutions.
• Zero Eyes: An $80 million-funded startup that develops gun detection software.
• Able Police and Mark 43: Startups providing AI software to assist in writing police reports.
• Veritone: A $444 million market cap business that creates AI capable of identifying and tracking individuals in surveillance footage or videos posted to social media.
• Leo Technologies' Verus product: Constantly monitors and transcribes prison inmate calls in "near real time" for AI-powered analysis.

Aggressive Marketing Tactics: Evidence from Emails

Emails obtained via public records requests reveal Amazon's aggressive marketing tactics. In one message, Amazon's law enforcement and school safety lead gave the San Diego County Sheriff's Office a "hard sell" on Lucidus, writing, "It is one of the most amazing tools that I have seen for law enforcement and has so many applications that I don't want to skew where your mind will go with it. I think your jail intel group would lose their minds."

Further examples of these tactics include:

• In November 2023, the same Amazon lead pitched a meeting to chiefs of police in King County, Washington, to "Talk strategy around how to get zero eyes into your schools."
• He urged departments to "get wide momentum going to put Flock's license plate readers on the roads."
• Upon learning the King County Sheriff's Office was seeking AI solutions in 2024, he offered to "get in front of whomever is running those projects to share the work that we are already doing with other agencies so this does not become a science project," implying a desire to streamline adoption rather than independent development.

Amazon's Stance and Privacy Concerns

An Amazon Web Services spokesperson dismissed the emails obtained by Forbes as "just business as usual." However, privacy activists have long expressed concerns about Amazon's involvement with law enforcement. The company's facial recognition tools have faced criticism for their reported inaccuracy in differentiating non-white faces. Earlier in the year, Amazon was also criticized for partnering with police tech giant Axon for a service that allows police to obtain footage from Ring cameras, raising further privacy alarms.

Conclusion

Amazon's strategy to penetrate the police tech market is comprehensive, leveraging its core cloud infrastructure and AI expertise to offer a wide range of surveillance and data analysis tools, both directly and through a robust partner ecosystem. While Amazon frames these efforts as standard business practices, the aggressive marketing tactics and the nature of the technologies involved, particularly those related to mass data aggregation and real-time surveillance, continue to fuel significant privacy concerns among activists and the public. The company's deep integration into law enforcement operations, as detailed by Forbes, highlights a growing trend of private tech companies shaping public safety infrastructure.