Is Public Safety Tech Effective in Countering Controversies?

When a person asks a question, it is typically rude to follow up with another question? Yet what I’m doing is asking a question, then several more and that could mean I’m not asking the right question, yet. First, I haven’t really asked the question. My college English professor, Baird Whitlock, is likely reaching apoplexy right now, so I’ll get to my point.

Recently, I wrote an article about the Controversy of Facial Recognition. I’ve never read or written anything which didn’t have an underlying motivation. I do have some questions of the public safety technology industries, is there a unifying and representative voice for the industry? That’s my question and it opens the door to other questions.

Last year, my firm, undertook a somewhat ill-fated effort to organize the industry around a purpose, here in Texas. There were a lot of challenges, first and foremost was the timing of the effort. The Texas Legislature meets every other year for 140 days. Trade groups, associations and coalitions begin forming their legislative agendas a year before a legislative sessions begins. Those agendas are set four to six months before the Legislature is called to order. Our timing was horrible because we kicked off as legislative agendas were at the printer.

The timing is better and I would argue that the urgency is greater.

My experience in Texas raised an idea, however. Should and could public safety tech organize under their own trade association or coalition? “Could they,” is an easy question to answer. “Should they,” opens the door to a more involved conversation. Still, this is a great conversation to have because the outcome can be quite positive not only for an industry but also for law enforcement.

There can be risks in organizing and they which can be mitigated as an effort is formed. A risk may be the largest companies eclipse the smaller ones in voice, policy, communications and presence? Another risk for the larger companies may relate to intellectual property or diluting their own public policy efforts. For any coalition representing a group filled with competing members, the focus has to be about message, policy and being a relied upon and trusted resource to policymakers.

After writing about facial recognition, the realization is emphasized that the concept of controversy doesn’t begin or end with smiling faces. There is a very organized and vocal movement addressing technology application within government and highly critical of how law enforcement uses technology. This same movement is very effective in providing a voice found in news articles, with policy creation at the local level and influencing public opinion.

Sure, law enforcement leadership groups at the national level have divisions which address technology and some law enforcement technology fields, such as biometrics, have associations. However, focusing arguments at the Congressional or national levels doesn’t drill down to where purchasing decisions are made, the state and local levels. 

The late Thomas P “Tip” O’Neill, former House Speaker, said, “All politics is local.” We’ve seen this. In my article, I profiled one news report. This report related back to a consistent set of themes such as, facial recognition cannot be trusted because it is inaccurate, it has inherent racial bias, it is passive surveillance which may be a violation of civil liberties.  A think tank was asked to counter those arguments, but the die was cast, facial recognition is inherently bad. That was the flag left fluttering on the pole as a city set a policy into motion.

Larger companies often have the advantage of employing or retaining legislative affairs professionals to help guide business interests through the regulatory jungle or to help mitigate incorrect assumptions or misinformation provided to policymakers and procurement staff. Smaller companies don’t really have the financial capacity to invest in this kind of strategy for their own company. From what I know about trade groups and associations after working with them for over twenty years, there is value in collaboration, organizing and being the collective voice for an industry.

While facial recognition is a hot issue at this point in time, there will be other issues which will or currently are causes of concern with policymakers and perhaps are also part of a movement to limit public safety tech. Collectively, how effective is the industry (public safety technology) in addressing assumptions at the state and local levels? Is the industry being adequately represented?

I go back to the heart of this and ask this question. What would such an organization be? It could be one that has a strong communications function coupled with fact-based research. It could be one that is effective in educating and being a thoughtful resource to policymakers at the state and local levels about what a specific technology is and isn’t. It could be a developer and repository of technology policies state and local governments could when procuring and implementing technology solutions. It could be representative of its member technology firms and law enforcement professionals. 

Perhaps it should be all of these things.

I believe there is value in organizing around a common set of values and purposes. It works and if properly constructed, governed and led, such an effort can do a great deal of good. When I published my facial recognition article, I was hopeful there would be comments and discussion. My purpose, though, wasn’t just to have an article be read but to lend some of my help to an industry. Yet I’m hopeful that this article may evoke some action.

Let me know what you think and you what you would like to do. I’ll be glad to help set something up to start that conversation.

Michael R. Terry is the COO and National Government Relations Director for Government State and Local Partners LLC, an Austin based government affairs and business to government technology ventures firm www.gslptexas.com