Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by quickConclusion 3211 days ago
Now you would think we need more body cams and recorded videos... and guess who is advertising free body cams to all US police officers: Axon/Taser.

https://www.axon.com/info/offer

Axon is actually the new name of Taser... which makes now money by selling systems archiving, managing, and analyzing police officers body cam videos.

https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/16/9724644/police-tech-body...

There is an obvious conflict of interest here: it could be so easy to conveniently delete a video incriminating a Taser device...
1 comments
devmunchies 3211 days ago
Is it easy though? Its incredibly risky? It could tarnish their reputation with police forces and risk lawsuits.

And are you saying they shouldn't be in the business of providing cameras to authorities because of a possible conflict of interest? They are a public company and have a responsibility to maximize profits. They made millions last year from evidence storage services.

And I would hope the engineers are building their infrastructure in a way that prevents tampering, otherwise the engineers could be held accountable for any very risky evidence deletion.

And I think body cams is a more ethical business than tasers anyway, helping to hold police and citizens accountable for their actions.

link
quickConclusion 3211 days ago
I hope it would not be easy to delete content, but the article shows how much we need to worry about it, when we see how much Taser goes to extra lengths to protect their weapon, and how they collude with the police force in the process.

I would prefer if the vendor selling the video systems did not also sell weapons. They could be split in 2 companies and dissociate ownership of each.

Beyond Tasers guns, it also warns us how important the governance model for video archival/retrieval system is. Because if the police force is the client, there is a business incentive to absolve the police officers in case of issues. How to define that governance model is above my pay grade, but this is something very important, that goes beyond engineers in the trenches.

link