Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer in New York on a study visit about AI

NEW YORK. 60,000 cameras, shot detection, and AI facial recognition.

Can the New York police’s criticized surveillance tool soon become a reality in Sweden?

Aftonbladet turns its back on the Minister of Justice, who went on an inspiration trip to the United States in search of tech solutions to crack the gangs at home.

– The police must be able to connect to cameras in real time, says Gunnar Strömmer (M).

In a room the size of a gymnasium, every single wall is covered by giant television screens.

One shows news channels.

Next: surveillance footage of ongoing pro-Palestinian protests at the city’s university.

Third: a map, dotted with thousands of cameras in New York that the police can connect to in real time, like little peepholes out into the street.

This is the very heart of the NYPD’s surveillance operations, the command center at police headquarters in lower Manhattan. From here, the work is forwarded to patrols in the field.

Sweden’s Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer squints at the screens while New York police officer Silvio Cuevas-Matos explains the “Shotspotter” system.

A shot detection. When sensors pick up the sound of a bullet, the system displays the location via GPS, allowing officers to directly connect to cameras at the scene.

– Let me show you what it could look like, says Cuevas-Matos, and pulls up a video on the screen.

Two guys shoot wildly at each other in a park.

Running, shooting, ducking.

Activation starts in two seconds. The police can go back to a minute before the shooting started.

An important tool, he believes, because around 80 percent of all shootings are not reported. With automatic detection, police officers can act faster.

– Let’s say five cameras are activated. Then we can pan the cameras, look around. Many perpetrators remain at the scene or are not far away, says Cuevas-Matos.

– It gives us a warning about gang violence and revenge actions. So that we know, “Okay, there was a shooting at that location, where can the next one take place?” There is always another shooting, the same night or days later.

Streams nod.

– It is an interesting tool that we have not discussed in Sweden. Possibly it can be used in certain metropolitan areas, as a preventive method and to clear up crimes that are not reported, he tells Aftonbladet afterwards.

The Minister of Justice is present in the USA on an idea tour to gather inspiration for the government’s new camera offensive.

That he landed in New York is no accident: America’s largest police force relies on cameras like few others do.

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, mass surveillance was introduced in the city to prevent new terrorist crimes.

Today, it is the police’s everyday tool.

They have over 60,000 cameras they can connect to in real time, of which 15,000 are the police’s own.

Facial recognition with AI.

Every police officer has a body camera.

All cars entering New York have their license plates scanned.

The monitoring has also, time and time again, received sharp criticism. Several human rights organizations have questioned the NYPD’s massive network of cameras to track people.

“You are never anonymous”, says Matt Mahmoudi, AI and human rights researcher at Amnesty International.

“Whether you’re participating in a protest, walking to a certain neighborhood, or even just grocery shopping, your face can be tracked by facial recognition technology using images from thousands of camera points across New York.”

Its critics highlight that the technology is discriminatory against people who have skin color other than white.

Among other things, because face scanning gives more incorrect results, real-time tracking is mostly used in vulnerable areas with a high concentration of minorities, and thus threatens personal integrity.

“Ban the scan” has become a battle cry.

Silvio Cuevas-Matos of the NYPD’s command center, adamantly maintains that police do not use facial recognition at public gatherings or in people’s everyday lives.

– If you have never been arrested before, you will not be in the system. But if you are known to the police from before, and commit new crimes that are caught on camera – then it runs in the face recognition.

Shotspotter, the technology that detects the sound of a fired bullet, has also been controversial.

More than 150 cities in the United States use the technology, but some major cities have recently stopped it. Chicago, Atlanta, Portland, Oregon. City officials describe it as “expensive, racist and ineffective,” reports CNN.

Inside the command center says Silvio Cuevasmatos that the cameras do not deter as many crimes as one might think. Despite the fact that the boxes are large and that it says “NYPD surveillance” on them.

– You might think that the shooters would pay attention to them, but the risks are still there.

How is crime in Sweden?, he asks the Minister of Justice.

– From a Swedish perspective, we have difficult problems, replies Strömmer.

Shootings. Explosions. Gang. Strömmer says that the surveillance debate also exists in Sweden, but that the government wants to increase the cameras.

– It wouldn’t be a stupid idea, says Cuevasmatos. Most people don’t like restrictions, “Oh god, the police or the government is watching us”. I understand that concern, but I would say that people already have more surveillance in their mobiles.

Pilots from the command center Flowing on. First to the Real Time Crime Center, where AI is used, among other things, to map and try to predict crimes.

Then on to a dim, unglamorous concrete police station in a gang-ridden part of Harlem, an area with a lot of shootings.

A police officer at the station simply summarizes how they work: “Cameras, cameras, cameras”.

They also say that decriminalizing marijuana hasn’t stopped organized crime in New York at all – quite the opposite. Instead, the grass is sold cheaper, outside the established shops.

– If you close one door, ten windows open, says police officer Scott Callahan in Harlem.

The cameras help with gang crime, he says, because witnesses are rarely cooperative. Then the police can go back several days in time and gather information about people and clothing.

After a whole day with several stops at the New York police, Strömmer is more convinced that Sweden needs more cameras to push back the gangs, he tells Aftonbladet.

But also a need to connect different camera systems; The police, public transport, business people. They have also discussed the importance of body cameras for police officers.

Several processes are underway.

The Swedish Police Agency is to sixfold its fixed surveillance cameras in 2024. The goal: to achieve 2,500 fixed surveillance cameras.

The government is also investigating facial recognition and direct access to road cameras.

– The police must be able to connect and get access to those cameras in real time, not just get that information afterwards, says Strömmer.

– Another such thing concerns cameras on police cars, the possibility of reading license plates in real time and using that information immediately.

Strömmer does not yet know to what extent facial recognition and AI may become relevant. He is awaiting an analysis which is expected to be completed in the spring.

– But I also think it is important that law enforcement gets access to offensive tools with new technology, such as artificial intelligence.

– Since crime will assimilate technology, they get a huge advantage if we don’t match it.

A shooting murder that shook Sweden recently is that of Mikael, 39, who was shot to death in front of his son after confronting a youth gang in Skärholmen.

Is there anything you saw here today that could have prevented a murder like that of Mikael?

– It is difficult to be so concrete in an individual case, says Strömmer.

– Even if the police are present locally, they will not be able to cover all areas. Then I come back to the cameras, which can prevent crime, and give police or prosecutors better conditions to solve crimes.