A video wall shows New York city police officers an interactive map of an area, security footage from nearby cameras, locations where high radiation levels are detected and whether any other threats have been made in New York. The Domain Awareness System, known as “the dashboard,” instantaneously mines data from the NYPD’s vast collection of arrest records, 911 calls, more than 3,000 security cameras citywide, license plate readers and portable radiation detectors and aggregates it into a user-friendly, readable form.NEW YORK – A 911 call comes in about a possible bomb in lower Manhattan and an alert pops up on computer screens at the New York Police Department, instantly showing officers an interactive map of the neighborhood, footage from nearby security cameras, whether there are high radiation levels and whether any other threats have been made against the city.
In a click, police know exactly what they’re getting into.
Such a hypothetical scenario may seem like something out of a futuristic crime drama, but the technology is real, developed in a partnership between the nation’s largest police department and Microsoft Corp., and the latest version has been quietly in use for about a year.
The project could pay off in more ways than one: The NYPD could make tens of millions of dollars under an unprecedented marketing deal that allows Microsoft to sell the system to other law enforcement agencies and civilian companies around the world. The city will get a 30 percent cut.
The Domain Awareness System, known as the dashboard, gives easy access to the police department’s voluminous arrest records, 911 calls, more than 3,000 security cameras citywide, license plate readers and portable radiation detectors – data that raises privacy concerns for some civil liberties groups. But the dashboard system mines existing tools and doesn’t create any new surveillance.