{"id":165264,"date":"2020-07-20T12:00:58","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T11:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=165264"},"modified":"2020-07-19T08:07:44","modified_gmt":"2020-07-19T07:07:44","slug":"the-microsoft-police-state-mass-surveillance-facial-recognition-and-the-azure-cloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/07\/the-microsoft-police-state-mass-surveillance-facial-recognition-and-the-azure-cloud\/","title":{"rendered":"The Microsoft Police State: Mass Surveillance, Facial Recognition, and the Azure Cloud"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Illustration: Eliana Rodgers for The Intercept<\/p><\/div>\n

14 Jul 2020 – <\/em>Nationwide protests against racist policing have brought new scrutiny onto big tech companies like Facebook, which is under boycott by advertisers over hate speech directed at people of color, and Amazon, called out for aiding police surveillance<\/a>. But Microsoft, which has largely escaped criticism, is knee-deep in services for law enforcement, fostering an ecosystem of companies that provide police with software using Microsoft\u2019s cloud and other platforms. The full story of these ties highlights how the tech sector is increasingly entangled in intimate<\/a>, ongoing relationships<\/a> with police departments.<\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s links to law enforcement agencies have been obscured by the company, whose public response to the outrage that followed the murder of George Floyd has focused on facial recognition software. This misdirects attention away from Microsoft\u2019s own mass surveillance platform for cops, the Domain Awareness System, built for the New York Police Department and later expanded to Atlanta, Brazil, and Singapore. It also obscures that Microsoft has partnered with scores of police surveillance vendors who run their products on a \u201cGovernment Cloud\u201d supplied by the company\u2019s Azure division and that it is pushing platforms to wire police field operations, including drones, robots, and other devices.<\/p>\n

With partnership, support, and critical infrastructure provided by Microsoft, a shadow industry of smaller corporations provide mass surveillance to law enforcement agencies. Genetec offers cloud-based CCTV and big data analytics for mass surveillance in major U.S. cities. Veritone provides facial recognition services to law enforcement agencies. And a wide range of partners provide high-tech policing equipment for the Microsoft Advanced Patrol Platform, which turns cop cars into all-seeing surveillance patrols. All of this is conducted together with Microsoft and hosted on the Azure Government Cloud.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Last month, hundreds of Microsoft employees petitioned their CEO<\/a>, Satya Nadella, to cancel contracts with law enforcement agencies, support Black Lives Matter, and endorse defunding the police. In response, Microsoft ignored the complaint and instead banned sales of its own<\/i> facial recognition software to police in the United States, directing eyes away from Microsoft\u2019s other contributions to police surveillance. The strategy worked: The press and activists alike praised the move, reinforcing Microsoft\u2019s said position as a moral leader<\/a> in tech.<\/p>\n

Yet it\u2019s not clear how long Microsoft will escape<\/a> major scrutiny. Policing is increasingly done with active cooperation from tech companies, and Microsoft, along with Amazon and other cloud providers, is one of the major players in this space.<\/p>\n

Because partnerships and services hosting third party vendors on the Azure cloud do not have to be announced to the public, it is impossible to know full extent of Microsoft\u2019s involvement in the policing domain, or the status of publicly announced third party services, potentially including some of the previously announced relationships mentioned below.<\/p>\n

Microsoft declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Microsoft: From Police Intelligence to the Azure Cloud<\/h3>\n

In the wake of 9\/11, Microsoft made major contributions to centralized intelligence centers for law enforcement agencies. Around 2009, it began working on<\/a> a surveillance platform for the NYPD called the Domain Awareness System, or DAS, which was unveiled to the public in 2012. The system was built with leadership from Microsoft along with NYPD officers.<\/p>\n

While some details about the DAS have been disclosed to the public, many are still missing. The most comprehensive account to date appeared in a 2017<\/a> paper<\/a> by NYPD officers.<\/p>\n

The DAS integrates disparate sources of information to perform three core functions: real-time alerting, investigations, and police analytics.<\/p>\n

Through the DAS, the NYPD watches the personal movements of the entire city. In its early days, the system ingested information from closed-circuit TV cameras, environmental sensors (to detect radiation and dangerous chemicals), and automatic license plate readers, or ALPRs. By 2010, it began adding geocoded NYPD records of complaints, arrests, 911 calls, and warrants \u201cto give context to the sensor data.\u201d Thereafter, it added video analytics, automatic pattern recognition, predictive policing, and a mobile app for cops.<\/p>\n

By 2016, the system had ingested 2 billion license plate images from ALPR cameras (3 million reads per day, archived for five years), 15 million complaints, more than 33 billion public records, over 9,000 NYPD and privately operated camera feeds, videos from 20,000-plus body cameras, and more. To make sense of it all, analytics algorithms pick out relevant data, including for predictive policing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"01-Microsoft-Aware-3\"<\/p>\n

A snapshot of the Microsoft Domain Awareness System \u2014 also called Microsoft Aware \u2014 desktop interface. Photo taken from Microsoft presentation titled \u201cAlways Aware,\u201d by John Manning and Kirk Arthur.\u00a0 Image: Microsoft presentation<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The NYPD has a history of police abuse, and civil rights and liberties advocates like Urban Justice Center\u2019s Surveillance Technology Oversight Project\u00a0have protested the system<\/a> out of\u00a0constitutional concerns, with little success to date.<\/p>\n

While the DAS has received some attention from the press \u2014 and is fairly well-known among activists \u2014 there is more to the story of Microsoft policing services.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Microsoft has grown its business through the expansion of its cloud services, in which storage capacity, servers, and software running on servers are rented out on a metered basis. One of its offerings, Azure Government, provides dedicated data hosting in exclusively domestic cloud centers so that the data never physically leaves the host country. In the U.S., Microsoft has built several Azure Government cloud centers for use by local, state, and federal organizations.<\/p>\n

Unbeknownst to most people, Microsoft has a \u201cPublic Safety and Justice\u201d division with staff who formerly worked in law enforcement. This is the true heart of the company\u2019s policing services, though it has operated for years away from public view.<\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s police surveillance services are often opaque because the company sells little in the way of its own policing products. It instead offers an array of \u201cgeneral purpose\u201d\u00a0Azure cloud services, such as machine learning and predictive analytics tools like Power BI (business intelligence) and Cognitive Services, which can be used by law enforcement agencies and surveillance vendors to build their own software or solutions.<\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s Surveillance-Based IoT Patrol Car<\/h3>\n

A rich array of Microsoft\u2019s cloud-based offerings is on full display with a concept called \u201cThe Connected Officer.\u201d Microsoft situates this concept as part of the Internet of Things, or IoT, in which gadgets are connected to online servers and thus made more useful. \u201cThe Connected Officer,\u201d Microsoft has written, will \u201cbring IoT to policing.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the Internet of Things, physical objects are assigned unique identifiers and transfer data over networks in an automated fashion. If a police officer draws a gun from its holster, for example, a notification can be sent over the network to alert other officers there may be danger. Real Time Crime Centers could then locate the officer on a map and monitor the situation from a command and control center.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"02-Connected-Officer-IoT\"<\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s Connected Officer simulation demo for IoT surveillance and data integration for real-time situational awareness and centralized police analytics. Photo taken from Microsoft presentation, \u201cThe Connected Officer: Bringing IoT to Policing,\u201d by Jeff King and Brandon Rohrer.<\/p>\n

Image: Microsoft presentation<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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According to this concept, a multitude of surveillance and IoT sensor data is sent onto a \u201chot path\u201d for fast use in command centers and onto a \u201ccold path\u201d to be used later by intelligence analysts looking for patterns. The data is streamed along through Microsoft\u2019s Azure Stream Analytics product, stored on the Azure cloud, and enhanced by Microsoft analytics solutions like Power BI \u2014 providing a number of points at which Microsoft can make money.<\/p>\n

While the \u201cConnected Officer\u201d was a conceptual exercise, the company\u2019s real-world patrol solution is the Microsoft Advanced Patrol Platform, or MAPP. MAPP is an IoT platfo<\/p>\n

rm for police patrol vehicles that integrates surveillance sensors and database records on the Azure cloud, includ<\/a>ing<\/a> \u201cdispatch information, driving directions, suspect history, a voice-activated license plate reader, a missing persons list, location-based crime bulletins, shift reports, and more.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"03-MAPP-car-MS-blog\"<\/p>\n

A demo of the Microsoft Advanced Patrol Platform, or MAPP, IoT surveillance vehicle for police. An Aeryon Labs SkyRanger is perched on top. Photo taken from Microsoft Azure blog, \u201cMicrosoft hosts Justice & Public Safety leaders at the 2nd annual CJIS Summit,\u201d by Rochelle Eichner.<\/p>\n

Photo: Microsoft Azure blog<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The MAPP vehicle is outfitted with gear from third-party vendors that stream surveillance data into the Azure cloud for law enforcement agencies. Mounted to the roof, a 360-degree high-resolution camera streams live video to Azure and the laptop inside the vehicle, with access also available on a mobile phone or remote computer. The vehicle also sports an automatic license plate reader that can read 5,000 plates per minute \u2014 whether the car is stationary or on the move<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and cross-check them against a database in Azure and run by Genetec\u2019s license plate reader solution<\/a>, AutoVu. A proximity camera<\/a> on the vehicle is designed to alert the officers when their vehicle is being approached.<\/p>\n

Patrolling the skies is a drone provided by Microsoft partner<\/a> Aeryon Labs, the SkyRanger<\/a>, to provide real-time streaming video. (Aeryon Labs is now part of surveillance giant FLIR Systems.) According to Nathan Beckham of Microsoft Public Safety and Justice, the vehicle\u2019s drones \u201cfollow it around<\/a> and see a bigger view of it.\u201d The drones, writes DroneLife,\u00a0can \u201cprovide aerial views<\/a> to the integrated data platform, allowing officers to assess ongoing situations in real time, or to gather forensic evidence from a crime scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police robots are also part of the MAPP platform. Products from ReconRobotics, for example, \u201cintegrat[ed] with Microsoft\u2019s Patrol Car of the Future Program\u201d in 2016. Microsoft says<\/a> ReconRobotics provides their MAPP vehicle with a \u201csmall, lightweight but powerful robot\u201d that \u201ccan be easily deployed and remotely controlled by patrol officers to provide real-time information to decision-makers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another\u00a0Microsoft partner<\/a>, SuperDroid Robots, has also announced they will provide the Microsoft MAPP vehicle with two compact remote-controlled surveillance robots, the MLT \u201cJack Russell<\/a>\u201d and the LT2-F \u201cBloodhound<\/a>,\u201d the latter of which can climb stairs and obstacles.<\/p>\n

Although it sports a Microsoft insignia on the hood and door, the physical vehicle the company uses to promote MAPP isn\u2019t for sale by Microsoft, and you probably won\u2019t see Microsoft-labeled cars driving around. Rather, Microsoft provides MAPP as a platform through which to transform existing cop cars into IoT surveillance vehicles: \u201cIt\u2019s really about being able to take all this data and put it up in the cloud, being able to source that data with their data, and start making relevant information out of it,\u201d said Beckham.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Microsoft says<\/a> \u201cthe car is becoming the nerve center for law enforcement.\u201d According to Beckham, the information collected and stored<\/a> in the Azure cloud will help officers \u201cidentify bad actors\u201d and \u201clet the officers be aware of the environment that is going on around them.\u201d As an example, he said, \u201cWe\u2019re hoping with machine learning and AI in the future, we can start pattern matching\u201d with MAPP vehicles providing data to help find \u201cbad actors.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"04-option2-MAPP-car-SuperDroid-robots-2.1-1000\"<\/p>\n

The MLT \u201cJack Russell\u201d and the LT2-F \u201cBloodhound\u201d on display at an event showcasing the Microsoft MAPP police vehicle solution during\u00a0the FBI National Academy Associates\u2019 2015 Annual Training Conference in Seattle. Photo taken from SuperDroid Robots blog post, \u201cSuperDroid Robots Partners with Microsoft.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo: SuperDroid Robots<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Last October, South African police announced<\/a> Microsoft partnered with the city of Durban for \u201c21st century\u201d smart policing. Durban\u2019s version of the the MAPP solution includes a 360-<\/a>degree ALPR<\/a> to scan license plates and a facial recognition camera from Chinese video surveillance firm Hikvision for use when the vehicle is stationary (e.g., parked at an event).<\/p>\n

According to South African news outlet ITWeb, the metro police will use the MAPP solution \u201cto deter criminal activities based on data analysis through predictive modeling and machine learning algorithms.\u201d The vehicle has already been rolled out<\/a> in Cape Town, where Microsoft recently opened a new Azure data center \u2014 an extension of the digital colonialis<\/a>m<\/a> I wrote about in 2018.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/a>Microsoft\u2019s MAPP patrol vehicle in Durban sports a facial recognition camera from China-based Hikvision. Photos taken from Multimedia Live presentation, \u2018Metro police go high-tech for festive season.\u2019 <\/span>Images: Multimedia Live presentation<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Much like the U.S. (albiet with some different dynamics<\/a>), South Africa faces the scourge of police brutality that disproportionately impacts people of color. The country had its own George Floyd moment<\/a> during the recent Covid-19 lockdown when the military and police brutally beat 40-year-old Collins Khosa in the poor Alexandra township, leading to his death \u2014 over a cup of beer. (A military inquiry found that Khosa\u2019s death was not linked to his injuries at the hands of authorities; Khosa\u2019s family and many others in South Africa have rejected<\/a> the review as a whitewash.)<\/p>\n

The MAPP solution will be used for \u201czero tolerance\u201d policing. For example, Durban Metro Police spokesperson Parboo Sewpersad said the rollout aims to punish \u201clittering, drinking and driving, and drinking and walking\u201d during summer festivities.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to determine where else the MAPP vehicle may be deployed. The rollout in South Africa suggests Microsoft sees Africa as a place to experiment with its police surveillance technologies.<\/p>\n

Microsoft: Powering CCTV and Police Intelligence in the City<\/h3>\n

Beyond wiring police vehicles, video surveillance provides another lucrative source of profits for Microsoft, as it is loaded with data packets to transmit, store, and process \u2014 earning fees each step of the way.<\/p>\n

When building a CCTV network packed with cameras, cities and businesses typically use <\/a>a video management system, or VMS, to do things like display multiple camera feeds on a video wall or offer the option to search through footage. A leading VMS provider, Genetec, offers the core VMS integrated into Microsoft\u2019s Domain Awareness System. A close partner<\/a> of Microsoft for over 20 years, the two companies work together<\/a> on integrating surveillance services on the Azure cloud.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Some of the most high-profile city police forces are using Genetec and Microsoft for video surveillance and analytics.<\/p>\n

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Through a public-private partnership called Operation Shield<\/a>, Atlanta\u2019s camera network has grown from 17 downtown cameras to a wide net of 10,600 cameras that officials hope will soon cover all city quadrants. Genetec and Microsoft Azure power the CCTV network.<\/p>\n

On June 14, Atlanta\u2019s Chief of Police, Erika Shields, resigned<\/a> after APD cops shot and killed a 27-year-old Black man, Rayshard Brooks. Last month, six Atlanta police officers<\/a> were charged for using excessive force against protesters of police violence.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Atlanta Police Foundation COO Marshall Freeman told me the foundation had just completed a\u00a0\u201cdepartment-wide rollout\u201d for Microsoft Aware (Domain Awareness System). Freeman said the Atlanta Police Department uses Microsoft machine learning to correlate data, and plans to add Microsoft\u2019s video analytics. \u201cWe can always continue to go back to Microsoft and have the builders expand on the technology and continue to build out the platform,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In Chicago, 35,000 cameras cover the city with a plug-in surveillance network. The back-end currently uses Genetec Stratocast and Genetec\u2019s Federation service, which manages access to cameras across a federated network of CCTV cameras \u2014 a network of camera networks, so to speak.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2017, Genetec custom-built their Citigraf platform<\/a> for the Chicago Police Department \u2014 the second-largest police force in the country \u2014 as a way to make sense of the department\u2019s vast array of data. Powered by Microsoft Azure, Citigraf ingests information from surveillance sensors and database records. Using real-time and historical data, it performs calculations, visualizations, alerts, and other tasks to create \u201cdeep situational awareness\u201d for the CPD. Microsoft is partnering with Genetec to build a \u201ccorrelation engine\u201d to make sense of the surveillance data.<\/p>\n

Chicago\u2019s police force has a brutal history<\/a> of racism, corruption, and even two decades\u2019 worth<\/a> of torturing suspects<\/a>. During police violence protests following Floyd\u2019s murder, the CPD\u00a0attacked and beat<\/a> protesters, including five Black protesters to the point of hospitalization.<\/p>\n

The city of Detroit uses Genetec Stratocast and Microsoft Azure to power their controversial Project Green Light. Launched in 2016 in tandem with a new Real Time Crime Center, the project allows local businesses \u2014 or other participating entities, such as churches and public housing \u2014 to install video cameras on their premises and stream surveillance feeds to the Detroit Police Department. Participants can place a \u201cgreen light\u201d next to the cameras to warn the public \u2014 which is 80 percent Black \u2014 that \u201cyou are being watched by the police.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2015, the DPD stated<\/a>, \u201cthe day is coming where police will have access to cameras everywhere allowing the police to virtually patrol nearly any area of the city without ever stepping foot.\u201d<\/p>\n

DPD Assistant Chief David LeValley explained to me that prior to creating the new command center, the department sent a team of people to several other U.S. cities, including New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, and the Drug Enforcement Administration center in El Paso, Texas, to scope out their intel centers. \u201cOur Real Time Crime Center is an all-encompassing intelligence center, it\u2019s not just Project Green Light,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

The expansion of police surveillance in Detroit has been swift. Today, Project Green Light has around 2,800 cameras installed across over 700 locations, and two smaller Real Time Crime Centers are being added, a development trending in cities like Chicago. LeValley told me those RTTCs will do things like \u201cpattern recognition\u201d and \u201creports for critical incidents.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the wake of George Floyd\u2019s murder, activists in Detroit have re<\/a>charged their efforts<\/a> to abolish Project Green Light in the fight against police surveillance, which local community advocates like Tawana Petty and Eric Williams deem racist. This year, two Black men, Robert Julian-Borchak Williams and Michael Oliver, were wrongfully arrested after being misidentified by the DPD\u2019s facial recognition technology.<\/p>\n

Nakia Wallace, a co-organizer of Detroit Will Breathe<\/a>, told me Project Green Light \u201cpre-criminalizes\u201d people and \u201cgives the police the right to keep tabs on you if they think you are guilty\u201d and \u201charass Black and brown communities.\u201d \u201cLinking together cameras\u201d across wide areas is \u201chyper-surveillance\u201d and \u201chas to be stopped,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The \u201cfunction that the [DPD] serve,\u201d Wallace said, is \u201cthe protection of property and white supremacy.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019re hyper-militarized, and even in the wake of that, people are still dying in the city\u201d because \u201cthey have no interest in the livelihood of Detroit citizens.\u201d Instead of militarizing, we need to \u201cstop pretending like poor Black people are inherently criminals, and start looking at social services and things that prevent people from going into a life of crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a 2017 blog post<\/a>, Microsoft boasted\u00a0about the partnership with Genetec for the DPD, stating that Project Green Light is \u201ca great example of how cities can improve public safety, citizens\u2019 quality of life, and economic growth with today\u2019s technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Microsoft Actually Does Supply Facial Recognition Technology<\/h3>\n

While Microsoft has been powering intelligence centers and CCTV networks in the shadows, the company has publicly focused on facial recognition regulations. On June 11, Microsoft joined Amazon and IBM<\/a> in saying it will not sell its facial recognition technology to police until there are regulations in place.<\/p>\n

This is a PR stunt that confused how Microsoft\u2019s relationship to policing works technically and ethically, in a number of ways.<\/p>\n

First, while the press occasionally criticizes Microsoft\u2019s Domain Awareness System, most attention to Microsoft policing focuses on facial recognition. This is mistaken: Microsoft is providing software to power a variety of policing technologies that undermine civil rights and liberties \u2014 even without facial recognition.<\/p>\n

Second, facial recognition is a notable feature of many video surveillance systems and Real Time Crime Centers that Microsoft powers. The cities of New York, Atlanta, Chicago, and Detroit are among those utilizing Microsoft services to collect, store, and process the visual surveillance data used for facial recognition. Microsoft services are part and parcel<\/i> of many police facial recognition surveillance systems.<\/p>\n

Third, at least one facial recognition company, Veritone, has been left out of the conversation. A Microsoft partner<\/a>, the Southern California artificial intelligence outfit offers cloud-based software called IDentify, which runs on Microsoft\u2019s cloud and helps law enforcement agencies flag the faces of potential suspects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In a 2020 keynote<\/a> at the Consumer Electronics Show, speaking alongside executives from Microsoft, Deloitte, and Oracle, Veritone CEO Chad Steelberg claimed that thanks to Veritone\u2019s IDentify software<\/a> on Azure, cops have helped catch \u201chundreds and hundreds of suspects and violent offenders.\u201d Veritone\u2019s Redact product expedites prosecutions, and Illuminate allows investigators to \u201ccull down evidence\u201d and obtain anomaly \u201cdetection insights.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a recent webinar<\/a>, Veritone explained how IDentify leverages data police already have, such as arrest records. If a person is detected and has no known match, the IDentify software can profile suspects by creating a \u201cperson of interest database\u201d that \u201cwill allow you to simply save unknown faces to this database and continuously monitor for those faces over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Veritone claims to deploy services in \u201cabout 150 locations,\u201d but does not name which ones use IDentify. It launched a pilot test with the Anaheim Police Department in 2019.<\/p>\n

Microsoft lists Veritone <\/a>IDentify<\/a> as a facial recognition law enforcement product offering in its app repository online. The promotional video on the Microsoft website advertises IDentify\u2019s ability to:<\/p>\n

\u2026 compare your known offender and person of interest databases with video evidence to quickly and automatically identify suspects for investigation. Simply upload evidence from surveillance systems, body cameras, and more. \u2026 But best of all, you\u2019re not chained to your desk! Snap a picture and identify suspects while out on patrol, to verify statements, and preserve ongoing investigations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Veritone has been a staunch<\/a> defender<\/a>\u00a0of its facial recognition technology. In May 2019, the company tweeted:<\/p>\n

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Amazon\u2019s facial-recognition technology is supercharging local policing in Oregon. Did you know Veritone IDentify can kick it up a notch by harnessing the power of state booking databases to uncover their suspect leads faster? #IDentify<\/a>https:\/\/t.co\/LMmqBkrP6I<\/a><\/p>\n

— Veritone (@veritoneinc) May 30, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n