More than a hundred local police departments, sheriff’s offices, and cities have set up an AI-powered camera system, with nearly 200,000 connected cameras belonging to residents and businesses around the country able to provide “direct access” to law enforcement, according to a 404 Media analysis of a set of scraped data.
Although likely not fully comprehensive, the data provides the clearest picture yet of the growing popularity of Fusus, a company and platform that qualitatively changes what surveillance cameras mean for a town’s residents and public agencies. Fusus turns dumb cameras into smart ones, with object recognition capabilities for items, people, and specific vehicles; it funnels usually siloed camera feeds into one central location for law enforcement, and lets agencies survey what surveillance coverage they have across their jurisdiction.
“Whether it’s a drone, a traffic camera, a private cell phone video, or a building security camera, FUSUS can extract the live video feed and send it to our Intelligence Center and officers in the field,” one memorandum 404 Media previously obtained reads.
404 Media is now publishing an interactive map based on the newly obtained data, letting readers see if their own local police department or similar agency has a Fusus system.