Second Report of the Axon AI Ethics Board: Automated License Plate Readers

Overview

Axon’s AI Ethics Board is an independent advisory board created in 2018 to advise Axon Enterprise, Inc. on ethical issues relating to its development or deployment of new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered policing technologies.

The Board’s second report was written in response to Axon’s announcement of its intention to begin producing automated license plate readers (ALPRs), computer-controlled camera systems that read and record license plates. As the report explains, ALPRs are already one of the most widely used surveillance systems in existence, but they are severely under-regulated. A combination of rapid growth and lack of regulation has created an industry with little public accountability and has led to a variety of concerning practices, including the creation of massive databases with information on millions of innocent individuals. The Board’s report calls for comprehensive regulation of ALPR technology, and offers vendors (including Axon) a number of recommendations to make ALPR design more transparent and ethical.

Key Takeaways

1). The Board found that although ALPRs can aid law enforcement in important ways, there are serious concerns regarding their unregulated use, including the potential to exacerbate enforcement of low-level offenses, such as fines-and-fees enforcement; evidence this enforcement falls disproportionately on low-income individuals and communities of color; and risks of false positives and long-term tracking of innocent drivers.

2). The Board calls for immediate industry-wide democratic regulation of ALPRs – meaning federal, state, and local governments need to step in. The report offers recommendations to help guide this process, and also outlines the Board’s plans to draft both a model ALPR statute following further study.

3). The Board calls for immediate self-regulation by vendors (including Axon) and law enforcement. This includes making design modifications to improve transparency, limiting ALPR use on low-level offenses, strictly limiting data retention, and paying careful attention to potential racial and socioeconomic disparities.