Read the full report, Axon AI Ethics Board 2020 End of Year Report (.pdf)
2020 saw a renewed focus on policing reform and the widespread deployment of new technologies, such as aerial surveillance and facial recognition. Amidst these changes, the work of the Axon AI Ethics Board was as vital as ever.
The Axon AI Ethics Board was established in 2018 to help guide and advise Axon on ethical issues relating to the development and deployment of new policing technologies. The Policing Project provides staff support to the Board by facilitating its meetings, conducting research, and drafting reports of the Board’s conclusions and recommendations.
The 2020 End of Year Report summarizes the work of the Board over the calendar year, including:
Updating Board membership
In 2020, the Board was pleased to add to its ranks Danielle Citron, Jefferson Scholars Foundation Schenck Distinguished Professor in Law at the University of Virginia; Chris Harris, Director of Criminal Justice Programs for Texas Appleseed; Wael AbdAlmageed, research associate professor at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering; and Carmen Best, former Chief of Police of the Seattle Police Department.
In the first months of 2021, the Board also welcomed several new members, including two from the United Kingdom: Charlie Beck, former Chief of Police of the Los Angeles Police Department and former interim Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department; Rebekah Delsol, senior managing policy officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative; Giles Herdale, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute; and Warren Stanley, former Commissioner of the California Highway Patrol.
Pushing Axon to rethink its customer base
The Board urged Axon to think of its customer base not as law enforcement agencies, but as the communities those agencies serve. As result of these conversations, Axon took a number of steps to implement a community-centered view of its customer base, including:
Axon’s hiring of Regina Holloway as its first Vice President of Community Impact. Holloway is a former defense attorney, supervising investigator at the Civilian Office of Police Accountability in Chicago, and most recently, a senior program manager at the Policing Project;
The creation of a Community Coalition, led by Holloway, that will work with product teams to ensure that Axon products are designed in a way that reflects the concerns of the communities in which they are used;
The integration of the Board’s Product Evaluation Framework into Axon’s product development process.
Review of Fleet 3
In 2020, Axon announced the forthcoming Fleet 3 in-car video system — the company’s first product featuring automated license plate recognition. Building off its June 2019 report on automated license plate readers (ALPRs), the Board updated its recommendations for Axon to follow as it developed Fleet 3, in light of new information provided by Axon. These recommendations are included in full in the EOY report.
After a series of meetings between the Board and Axon, the company agreed to adopt nearly all of the Board’s ethical recommendations regarding the development of Fleet 3. The Board also recommended that the Policing Project perform an audit of Flock Safety, a company that is partnering with Axon on ALPR technology, which is currently underway.
Review of Social Media and Webpage Evidence
The Board reviewed several products Axon developed during its Sprint for Justice campaign, including a new feature called Social Media and Webpage Evidence. This feature allows members of the public to capture online content, such as websites or social media posts, and submit it as evidence directly to policing agencies via Axon Citizen, Axon’s platform to collect and manage evidence solicited from the community. (The full list of Sprint for Justice products reviewed by the Board is also detailed in the full report.)
Board members had significant reservations regarding the Social Media and Webpage Evidence feature including concerns over privacy of social media content, the potential for deceptive or manipulated "deep fake" videos being shared with policing agencies, and over-policing. There were also concerns about anonymity and protections for individuals submitting evidence of police misconduct.
In response to the Board’s concerns, Axon made the decision to disconnect the feature from Axon Citizen.
Additional details on the efforts of the Axon AI Ethics Board are detailed in the full report.
About the Axon AI Ethics Board
The Axon AI Ethics Board is an independent advisory body made up of experts from varying fields including AI, computer science, privacy, law enforcement, civil liberties and public policy. The purpose of the board is to provide Axon with guidance about the responsible development of police technologies and of AI features in its products and services, which includes considering when to use and not use AI.
Policing Project Founder and Faculty Director Barry Friedman is an original member of the Ethics Board. To date, the Ethics Board has released two reports, facilitated by the Policing Project, concerning ALPRs and face recognition. A full list of the Board’s current membership can be found here.