A Drone-Launching Police Automobile That Can Drive Itself

For proof that America’s surveillance dystopia is completely uncontrolled, you want look no additional than Florida, the place automated policing is getting extra creative by the day. The newest insult to our collective sense of non-public privateness? A self-driving cop automotive that may reportedly launch drones.

In a press release printed earlier this month, the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s workplace introduced the launch of a brand new pilot program involving one thing cops are calling the PUG. That’s brief for the “Police Unmanned Floor car,” which can also be described as a “Patrol Accomplice” for native cops.

The PUG might be an autonomous car that comes outfitted with a bevy of recent surveillance applied sciences. The press launch notes that the car will leverage “AI-driven analytics, real-time crime information, and a set of sensors together with 360-degree cameras, thermal imaging, license plate recognition, and drone launch capabilities.” Its autonomous capabilities are equipped by a agency known as Perrone Robotics, in line with the press launch.

What is going to the PUG do? Not a lot—for now. Certainly, the car could also be extra of a PR stunt (at the very least initially) than a purposeful police software. The press launch says that the automotive will function out of the police division’s Neighborhood Affairs Bureau (primarily its public outreach wing) and “seem at public occasions,” the place the native sheriff will “collect suggestions from residents earlier than the car is taken into account for broader patrol use.”

The PUG pilot program was developed in partnership with Policing Lab, a non-profit that claims its mission is to “empower police departments by means of skilled technical help, hands-on coaching, and superior expertise.”

“This program provides regulation enforcement officers a wise high-tech accomplice within the area,” mentioned Marjolijn Bruggeling, Government Director of Policing Lab, in a press launch. “The PUG will increase situational consciousness, automates repetitive duties, and frees deputies to deal with the complicated and human facet of policing. It’s a sensible step towards safer, extra environment friendly public security.”

Gizmodo reached out to the Miami Police Division for extra info.

There are myriad examples of how policing expertise continues to evolve in methods which are deeply invasive to the informal American (the expansion of the license plate reader industry is only one instance). On the identical time, police departments have been in a position to offload a whole lot of their policing duties onto personal methods, which passively surveil the inhabitants after which flip the information over to the cops once they ask for it (Amazon Ring, for example). It’s solely a matter of time earlier than that robotic canine is strolling down your road with an AI-powered gun turret on its again.