Aurora can soon begin using an AI technology that assesses police body camera audio, which proponents say will serve as a helpful tool to monitor for poor police behavior and allow the Aurora Police Department to correct it quickly.
The city council approved a $250,000 contract with the company Truleo at its Monday meeting. The company provides AI systems that analyze the audio of body-worn camera footage and can detect professional and unprofessional speech from officers – such as profanity – use-of-force events and pursuits, among other scenarios, according to the company’s website.
Councilmember Juan Marcano asked several questions of city staff about the contract, saying he sees the program’s potential benefits but had received scrutiny from constituents regarding the program’s effectiveness, as well as concerns for citizen privacy.
The system is used by numerous law enforcement agencies in the U.S. but earlier this year was paused in Seattle amid concerns about increased government surveillance, Axios Seattle reported.
Pete Schulte, an attorney for Aurora, said the software does not produce additional data on citizens who interact with law enforcement and only analyzes the data already created by body-worn cameras.
The intent is to use the program as an “early intervention” tool to monitor for both good and bad officer conduct during interactions with the public.
The system can delineate between officers and citizens because each officer will be creating “voice imprints” so that the technology knows when they are speaking, Schulte said. Supervisors assessing the video will be focusing on the conduct of officers, not citizens, he said.
“There is not going to be any direct impact on privacy rights, in my opinion,” he said.
In response to effectiveness concerns, Schulte said a rate of 70% to 75% effectiveness is better than zero, and that the city is using the program on a trial basis for roughly year. APD does not have the manpower to assess the “thousands of hours” of body camera footage produced weekly, but Truleo will allow the department to assess all the footage moving forward, he said.
Aurora Police Department interim Chief of Police Art Acevedo added that the system automatically redacts any personally identifying information of citizens.
He touted Truleo as a way law enforcement will be able to gauge when a citizen has a negative reaction to the police officer they are interacting with, and what caused that reaction, allowing them to spot when an officer contributed to an escalated situation.
“It’s really a great coaching tool,” he said.
The tool cannot read voice inflection or detect attitudes such as sarcasm, he said, but monitoring for elevated reactions from citizens will allow supervisors to know when an officer might have used disrespectful behavior. That is one of the most common complaints about law enforcement behavior and harms public trust, he said.
At chaotic scenes where multiple people are speaking, the voice imprints will also allow the system to know which officer is speaking and what each officer said.
Acevedo, who previously worked as a strategic advisor for the company, disinvested last year and was not part of the Aurora city administration’s decision to pursue the contract, Schulte said. That decision was made before Acevedo joined the city.
