“More than likely, what's going to happen is it's going to be a more reactive response on our end,” says Capitol Police Chief Bo Luckey.
He says there will be several agencies involved in security efforts during this weekend’s National Folk Festival, including the Hind’s County Sheriff’s office, the Department of Public Safety and the Jackson Police Department.
“We want the criminal elements to know that when they come to downtown Jackson, they're being recorded, so maybe they won't do what they're thinking about doing,” Luckey said. “We're hoping that this is going to work in our favor, not only to help catch the criminal element, but to deter the criminal element as well.”
The security cameras have the ability to use AI to sift through data collected from images.
“We can utilize AI by going back and looking at pre-recorded video, redefining our search parameters, like okay, we're looking for a blue truck,” Kyle Keega, technical consultant for Project NOLA, said. “So rather than sit there and sift through hours of footage, we can type blue truck, and it will scour the recorded footage and find the target that we're looking for.”
Camera systems utilizing AI have been criticized for misidentifying people of color. New Orlean’s police department has come under scrutiny for using footage obtained through Project NOLA’s use of facial recognition technology, according to reporting by Verite News. Keegan says facial recognition software is not being used with the cameras installed in Jackson.
