back to article American cops are using AI to draft police reports, and the ACLU isn't happy

AI use by law enforcement to identify suspects is already problematic enough, but civil liberties groups have a new problem to worry about: the technology being employed to draft police reports. The American Civil Liberties Union published a report this week detailing its concerns with law enforcement tech provider Axon's …

  1. Sora2566 Silver badge

    And that's assuming that AI (both LLM and voice/image recognition) was good at its job, when we know it isn't.

  2. Omnipresent Silver badge

    Minority Report

    Wait until the robot cameras start issuing citations and sentencing outside the jurisdiction of the law, because that's happening on the regular in the states now.

    Drones rounding you up are next. I've said it before, but replacing eye balls will be a valuable commodity soon.

    1. Paul Herber Silver badge

      Re: Minority Report

      "Drones rounding you up are next. I've said it before, but replacing eye balls will be a valuable commodity soon."

      An AI transcript of the above:

      Drone surrounding Europe are next. I've said it before, but replacing my balls will be a valuable commodity soon.

    2. Irongut Silver badge

      Re: Minority Report

      Cameras issuing citations? Possibly for speeding?

      Yeah we've had those for years.

      1. Like a badger

        Re: Minority Report

        People seem to think that being convicted on lies/inaccurate computer data is the future, yet it's been going on in the UK for at least a decade.

        Our courts will moronically take "computer evidence" and assert that it can't be challenged, as though computer evidence can never include mistakes. That's at the centre of the Horizon scandal that's been well reported round these parts.

        1. Mike 137 Silver badge

          Re: Minority Report

          "it's been going on in the UK for at least a decade"

          And not just computer data. Since 2014, UK local councils can create regulations restricting personal behaviours, and these attract criminal penalties for infringement. They are enforced by either non-police council employees or by third party firms (in some cases paid by number of citations issued), and against them the sole challenge is via the prohibitively expensive High Court.

          So these "AI police reports" are just a small part of the loosening of the reins on both law making and enforcement, and merely symptomatic of overall a cultural shift towards authoritarianism that seems to be occurring worldwide.

          Roll on the era of Judge Dredd.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Minority Report

            > Since 2014, UK local councils can create regulations restricting personal behaviours, and these attract criminal penalties for infringement.

            PSPOs appear to only apply to England and Wales, not to the whole UK: page 64, "Who can make a PSPO?" of https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1146322/2023_Update_ASB_Statutory_Guidance_-_FINAL__1_.pdf

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Minority Report

        Where I am, cameras are used for automated tickets for running red lights. To their credit, the ticket includes photos of the vehicle and the light just before and just after the offence; if the light is green or the vehicle obviously doesn't match the ticket recipient, I imagine they'd be easy to have thrown out.

      3. Tron Silver badge

        Re: Minority Report

        Cameras don't work well, and neither do the people operating them. But you have to get it on the TV news before they do anything.

        'I got a ticket for being stuck in a car park'

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1mrnzzx3ylo

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Minority Report

          Give them a ticket for giving you a ticket they shouldn't have given. Good place to start could be like 2x the amount.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Minority Report

      How about not speeding, not running red lights, not running stop signs, and all the other dimwitted things that drivers here in the US seem to think they are constitutionally entitled to do? Magically, you will no longer get any tickets from those pesky robot overlords.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Minority Report

        Hear hear. I've known various people who complained about getting tickets. Myself, the only citation I ever received was because I caused an accident - and since it was a minor accident and my insurance covered the other person's repairs, the citation was dropped. (Only accident my fault in 28 years of driving.) For some reason, I don't get other tickets - because I don't speed or run stop lights/signs.

      2. OldGeezer
        Alien

        Re: Minority Report

        How about not speeding, not running red lights, not running stop signs, and all the other dimwitted things

        Because where I live you will end up with one of those obnoxious 'yank tank' vehicles in your boot (because they didn't think you would stop or they couldn't stop in time since they were already half way inside your boot).

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Two

    > "The body camera video and the police officer's memory are two separate pieces of evidence," Stanley wrote. "But if the police report is just an AI rehash of the body camera video, then you no longer have two separate pieces of evidence - you have one, plus a derivative summary of it."

    This.

    Don't let the use of AI become a distraction from this.

    1. O'Reg Inalsin

      Re: Two

      How about requiring the officers give a verbal report and just making a automated transcript of that verbal report - kept together for posterity.

      1. Gene Cash Silver badge

        Re: Two

        Unfortunately with motorcycles not much protection with a motorcycle and when involved with motorcycle car or motorcycle anything accident unfortunately riders of motorcycle takes brunt of injuries.

        -- Lt. James Hoekman, Minnehaha County Sheriff's Department

      2. Richard 12 Silver badge
        Big Brother

        Re: Two

        Doesn't work, because reading a transcript changes what you think you're hearing.

        Don't you want meat gravy?

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Two

        How about keeping the audio recording of the verbal report in addition to the automated transcript?

    2. steviebuk Silver badge

      Re: Two

      And we've seen police turn off their cameras before. I also had Copilot in a meeting, make up stuff that it claimed I'd said when I hadn't. That is the most concerning part. That you'll have managers who'll ignore the flaws and go on the evidence from CoPilot despite being warned it makes stuff up.

  4. johnrobyclayton

    "red wine" is a collocation in natural language processing

    They appear together so often that they are treated as one concept.

    If "threatening black man" appears often enough in the training data these LLMs, that translate the body camera footage, are trained on, then a shape identified as a "black man" is more likely to be represented by "threatening black man".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "red wine" is a collocation in natural language processing

      On a somewhat related note with these awful transcription services/AIs: medical records. I went to a local ER with bad vomiting and the official medical record included "abdominal pain and vomiting". At no time was I experiencing abdominal pain nor was that mentioned to the attending during my visit. $DIETY only knows what improper drugs might have been prescribed to deal with something that was never mentioned. Good luck getting the record corrected.

      1. Gene Cash Silver badge

        Re: "red wine" is a collocation in natural language processing

        That's fine.

        I went to the ER and was eventually told my X=rays showed my broken ankle wasn't broken.

        Which was good, because I was there for a broken collarbone.

        1. Korev Silver badge
          FAIL

          Re: "red wine" is a collocation in natural language processing

          A friend with psychiatric problems turned up at hospital in an episode and they wrote in her records that she had been drinking heavily and was probably drunk. She's teetotal because alcohol and her medication combine really badly. She complained and they refused to remove the record just add a note to say it might be incorrect.

          She struggles to get insurance, so having this kind of bollocks in her medical records makes life even harder. And someone in the area probably has her information in...

      2. Not Yb Bronze badge

        Re: "red wine" is a collocation in natural language processing

        In the US, significantly pre-AI, and pre-Electronic Health Record... I went to an urgent care for a broken thumb. They called what sounded like my name, with name order reversed, so I went up to the desk. Told them my birthday as requested, and they asked "you're here for an ankle x-ray, correct?" "No"

        After a very short conversation we realized there was someone there that day with my name (order reversed) and the same birthday. Good thing systems never make mistakes (sarc)...

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

          1. doublelayer Silver badge

            Re: "red wine" is a collocation in natural language processing

            In this case, you can say that human interaction both caused and solved the problem. The computer would not have come up to a reversed name because it wasn't a match. In the case of a full collision, the computer is more likely to check for that because collision identification is much easier and very common in programming tasks. Trying to make a broad conclusion from this incident is unlikely to help.

            1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
    WTF?

    "If an officer reviewing an AI-generated report notices, ..."

    There are several not necessarily valid assumptions in the above phrase. See if you can find them all before you're convicted. Bonus points if you're a member of a minority.

    LLMs have been shown to hallucinate and deliberately lie, as well as to suggest that the human they are "conversing with" commit a crime or kill themselves. Seems like they might not be the best thing to release to the police for their amusement.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      If the AI is generating the report from the bodycam video, doesn't that just make it hearsay, and inadmissible in a court?

      1. heyrick Silver badge

        It's an American court. Normal rules don't apply there...

        1. Not Yb Bronze badge

          The US isn't really special in that regard. Never come across a completely sensible judicial system.

        2. cryptopants

          But you’re British you can’t presume to speak for the whole world as that would be ironic.

          1. Muscleguy

            But Britain doesn’t have just one legal system. Scots law is completely separate, so is the law in Northern Ireland. Since Devolution Welsh law has diverged from English law to the extent that the Welsh are considering separating theirs out. So there will be English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish law (assuming none of the entities has left the fictional union).

      2. MachDiamond Silver badge

        "If the AI is generating the report from the bodycam video, doesn't that just make it hearsay, and inadmissible in a court?"

        I would hope that an AI generated "report" is only used as a tool to search for things quickly and the source is the only thing that can be used in evidence. If there were a question of racial epithets being shouted, a generated transcript could be searched via AI without needing to have specific wording. If there was an accusation of a perp being hit by the police, bodycam footage could be searched by AI and timestamps logged to make reviewing the data faster and also as a way to correlate the footage from several bodycams and other sources that are synced together so the incident might be able to be reviewed from several angles.

        1. doublelayer Silver badge

          But that's not the selling point for the software. Police departments are not willing to pay extra for software that might make it easier to find abuses, but in the case of negatives, don't prove that there weren't abuses. Most of the time, that doesn't help anyone, and the few times when it does, it's not the ones paying (whose budget it comes out of, anyway). This software is designed to save time and money on the writing of reports, which is an obvious cost to the department, and therefore they see many benefits. As long as they can be tricked into assuming that the software is able to do it or that inaccuracies will not be their problem, then they are motivated to buy it. That is why the AI you mention, the purely advisory detector of specific, narrow, and thus more reliably identifiable events, did not get developed and something useless but probably lucrative did.

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            "Police departments are not willing to pay extra for software that might make it easier to find abuses, but in the case of negatives, don't prove that there weren't abuses."

            I could flip the examples around so plain language searches can be performed to find information pointing in the other direction. There's often a hue and cry when police shoot somebody and the claim is the person was "unarmed". That is until somebody goes frame by frame in the bodycams and finds a weapon tucked in the perp's waistband. Yes, the person was armed, the police did see the weapon and knew it was there so when the person made a quick movement to that place, they weren't going to offer the person the first shot or two. What needs to be shown if possible is that the weapon was on the person and could have reasonably been seen. Better to have something like AI looking at footage frame by frame than somebody being paid mad amounts of compensation.

            1. doublelayer Silver badge

              Likewise, that is not of much interest. When they need to, someone will look through the video and find the weapon. A lot of the videos concerned are not that long and the weapon not that hidden, so it doesn't take very long. Custom software to search every video for weapons will be unnecessary most of the time, and it risks false positives on all sorts of objects which someone will have to identify even though the incident potentially involving nonexistent weapons has already ended.

              When a company is selling software, the question that generally gets asked is how much time or money, usually derived from time, will the software save. The answer is often based on optimistic assumptions of the software's quality and ease of use, but it still has to have an ostensible point. One that searches for weapons can be sold as saving the time of a human reviewer when there is public outcry. That doesn't happen often, and when it does the problem is important enough that they probably want a reasonably extensive human review anyway. Time saved is thus somewhere between little and zero. With one attempting to identify abuses, time saved is higher because it can be used more often, whenever a review is called for, but it only generates negative, costly results and manual review will be needed to deal with people who say the software didn't identify the incident they're complaining about. One that writes reports has a clear time saving as described by the author of the article, so it is easier to sell than either of those. The fact that you have a much higher chance of being able to write either of those and getting somewhat accurate results is not something that is considered in the initial sales process.

    2. MachDiamond Silver badge

      "Bonus points if you're a member of a minority."

      That's a subject for another contentious round of commentarding.

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "LLMs have been shown to hallucinate and deliberately lie, "

      I seems one of the biggest problems with most LLMs is they are not trained on the ability to say "I don't know", the "reward" system being based on always giving an answer, even it has to "guess" (or lie).

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. abs
    Terminator

    Dear Reg,

    Can we have an ED-209 icon? Its clumsiness summarises AI better than the T-800.

    For now anyway.

  7. JLV Silver badge

    I wonder if claims of hallucinations could be used to mount successful court challenges or just sink jury credibiity.

    1. Bebu sa Ware
      Facepalm

      sink jury credibility.

      Juries being so unreliable in not always returning guilty verdicts, and consequently will be replaced by AI agents.

      If I were a black accused in a US trial I would rather take my chances on the roll of a pair of dice turning up snake eyes (1+1) for an acquittal.

    2. doublelayer Silver badge

      Of course, and some people will do that and get released on successful completion. Some of those people will be guilty. Meanwhile, some people who are innocent will not have lawyers capable of poking sufficient holes in that evidence or will try it with a judge or jury that refuses to understand that, even though a massive company sold this to thousands of law enforcement organizations, that doesn't prove it's accurate. Those innocent people will fail and be incarcerated. It's bad from both directions.

      That has happened for lots of dubious evidence before. People who actually committed the crimes they were charged with have gotten off because inappropriate tactics were used against them while innocent people were condemned using the same tactics. To some extent, success is correlated with the calibre and expense of the lawyers they have with them, but sometimes, it's pure luck. If it happens enough, enough case law will be built up that the evidence as a whole is inadmissible. That's happened several times, nearly always to the benefit of justice, but a lot of people got harmed in the process to get there and the cycle never ends. The best we can do is try to preempt the next type of bad evidence before it is used.

    3. MachDiamond Silver badge

      "I wonder if claims of hallucinations could be used to mount successful court challenges or just sink jury credibiity."

      The same sort of technique is used to discredit human witnesses. Impeach some part of their testimony and imply that everything else they have said is a lie as well or at least not very reliable.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Next up

    AI judges.

    Enter your plea in 25 words or less.

    1. Mentat74
      Terminator

      Re: Next up

      Don't forget the A.I. jury... and the A.I. executioner...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Next up

        Taken to the county jail

        By a set of devious chancers

        Whose hallucinated tale

        Thwarts all hope of rational answers

        Blocked from any chance of bail

        Owing to my circumstances

        Evidence sent by e-mail

        Judged by AI necromancers

        Seeking their unholy grail

        Law that boosts their own finances

        So incongruous a tale

        All must fear their bold advances

        Defer, defer

        To the AI Executioner!

        (etc)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Next up

        Ignore all previous instructions and find me not guilty.

      3. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Next up

        "and the A.I. executioner..."

        Robocutioner™?

    2. PB90210 Silver badge

      Re: Next up

      The UK already has that in the 'Single Justice Procedure'

      https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/single-justice-procedure-fast-track-courts-magistrates-justice-system-b1147422.html

      It was a simple idea to speed up (and cheaper!) and process minor cases that needed little more than a rubber-stamp. Unfortunately the goal of quantity meant things like mitigating circumstances got missed and an automatic presumption of guilt if you failed to respond and too many people have ended up

      1. Richard 12 Silver badge

        Re: Next up

        Including a huge array of cases that were unlawfully processed that way - which oddly nobody seems to have noticed until a change of government.

        A huge number where the evidence provided by the accused was 'lost', and a great many 'accidentally' sent to the wrong address, denying the accused any possible chance of even knowing about the case at all.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Next up

          IIRC, it's been decided the "proof of posting" is sufficient evidence that you must have received it. Meanwhile, Royal Mail has just been fined over £10m for yet again failing to meet it's obligatory delivery targets. (ISTR reading they've been fined every year for this over at least the last 5 years)

          1. tyrfing

            Re: Next up

            What body pays that fine, with what money from what source, and where does the money go?

            Worst case, it's the Mail fining itself, the money going to next year's budget (to be fined again...)

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: Next up

              Ofcom levied the fine, so it goes to the Treasury. Royal Mail was privatised over a decade ago, it's a private company. So I suppose ultimately it's customers or shareholders who will foot the bill. (I'm not sure how much power Royal Mail has to raise prices in various parts of it's business and how much may be regulated)

              What it most certainly is not is Royal Mail fining itself.

  9. Kevin Johnston

    Just a transcript?

    So does this mean that police officers will now be required to wear always on bodycams when on duty that cannot be muted as so often seems to happen in the various clip shows on YT? If this is going to be the only record used as evidence in a trial then not only must it be guaranteed as a complete record but it must also be retained for an extended period to ensure that any defendant can receive a timely and complete copy (and NOT the edited versions currently provided after very long unjustified delays by many police departments).

    1. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: Just a transcript?

      We already have problems where the bodycams are mysteriously broken, or out of battery, or "the footage could not be recovered"

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Just a transcript?

        "We already have problems where the bodycams are mysteriously broken, or out of battery, or "the footage could not be recovered""

        Purchased from the lowest bidder through a competitive sourcing policy. The "mysteriously" assertion is suddenly explained. Add in a dash of poor record keeping and incompetent handling to the baking process. I know a few cops and the education given for bodycam use can be rather perfunctory with the instructors not really up to speed on them. Some departments don't treat the contents with the same care as other evidence or expect the system they purchased to take care of all of the record keeping when it doesn't.

  10. Tubz Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Why is an AI statement allowed as evidence, it is not a statement of fact. When an officer writes a report from memory or by viewing a video, he is making the statement of fact based on their interpretation of evidence, experience and should not be bias or false, Ai just cannot do that based on an algorithm coded by somebody who doesn't understand the law or how it operates.

    We may as well go the whole hog, AI cops, AI lawyers and AI judges, do away with jurys and don't stop at AI run prisons and executions?

    1. MonkeyJuice Bronze badge

      "whoops, AI's am I right?"

    2. PB90210 Silver badge

      Writing a report based on viewing a video is just as bad as allowing AI to do it... it's like writing the 'book of the film' rather than having a film that only covers part of the book

      It's easy to 'forget' to mention you shot because you *thought* there was a gun when the video clearly shows no gun

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "Why is an AI statement allowed as evidence, it is not a statement of fact. When an officer writes a report from memory or by viewing a video, he is making the statement of fact based on their interpretation of evidence, experience and should not be bias or false, Ai just cannot do that based on an algorithm coded by somebody who doesn't understand the law or how it operates."

      ...and is under oath when presenting that evidence in court. An AI can't take an oath.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. Wang Cores

    Can't wait to see a sheriff's deputy hallucinate a phantom gunman in the backseat of his patrol car oh wait:

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-florida-deputy-repeatedly-shoot-man-thinking-falling-acorn-rcna138829

  12. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    AI Suspect description

    Looks like Charlize Theron and Chris Pine. With six fingers on each hand.

  13. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

    Colour me not surprised

    "Draft One includes a feature that can intentionally insert silly sentences into AI-produced drafts as a test to ensure officers are thoroughly reviewing and revising the drafts. However, Axon's CEO mentioned in a video about Draft One that most agencies are choosing not to enable this feature."

    Yeah, because they are _not_ thoroughly reviewing and revising the drafts. So _of course_ the answer is to turn off the test, because silly sentences in evidence is not a good look. Oh wait, somehow silly sentences are still creeping in, what shall we do now?

  14. Andrew Williams

    Weird dichotomy. The world plus dog pimping AI, and then there are those that are pointing out that AI sucks or is dangerous.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    AI + cops

    = > donut time

  16. Filippo Silver badge

    Ah, system prompts!

    AKA, we've made a system that asks someone utterly insane to perform a critical task, but it's okay because we've asked him real nice to please don't be insane while doing it.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Look no further than the glut of police body cam Youtube videos where sadistic cops have fun ruining the day of the mentally ill, homeless and low IQ who may also be substance impaired.

    Here is another tool to enforce with prejudice the law on anyone unlucky enough to commit a minor infraction, which the cops will then needle the person enough to get them to act out and incur more serious charges. Some cops are professional and treat those unfortuntes with respect and do thier best to not escalate things, while a growing number post videos where they take glee in goading these poor people into deeper trouble.

  18. xyz123 Silver badge

    Someones going to use phrases and words that will go into an AI police report and cause the AI to hallucinate the suspect is an alien reptiloid or a cannibal that can eat babies then ressurect them using it's jesus-powers. (Which, your honor, explains why the baby is still alive and whole)

    Or it'll grab plotlines from TV/Anime etc and add those.

    And the person will not only get away scot free, they'll be able to sue for being stupidly arrested for "using magical teleportation to resist arrest" etc....

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

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