Alas, because you have not heard of them, does not mean your local police have not heard of them (they are probably using them already - even if you have astonishingly low gun crime in Europe, making the exercise a pointless waste of money).
In Europe, companies selling to the police are extremely discrete and generally keep a hyper low profile, particularly when selling technology (dubious or otherwise). These deals generally work by 'befriending' politicians who can instruct police to purchase and that's all back-room type of stuff.
Generally, it's when a politician wants credit by claiming some success in reducing/detecting crime that these things get any press. The publicity focuses not on the company, but on the genius nature of the politicians decision making.
> astonishingly low gun crime in Europe, making the exercise a pointless waste of money
Worse than that; if you listen long enough and carefully enough, you will hear gunshots. It's like over-used medical testing: look for a problem, find a problem, treat the problem, even if had you never looked the patient would generally be better off.
I live in a neighborhood in SF bay inhabited by only billionaires and millionaires. I am always looking up and cataloging all the surveillance devices mounted when I am moving around. We have plenty of ALPR's and other cameras but no shotspotters anywhere near where I live. If I go into Richmond, Oakland, or other blacker parts of the bay, they are prevalent. I heard what sounded like gunshots last night but heard no sirens afterwards. I have more cataloging to do with Vespucci app on my phone or:
https://mapcomplete.osm.be/surveillance.htmlhttps://sunders.uber.space/
In the US, I know you guys have to be shooting at anything and everything, just because you have a gun.
In Canada, people on farms often buy guns just as a tool, not for cultural reasons, or pleasure, such as long guns, to shoot.... yes, rabid animals, or things preying on their livestock.
It is a major use case, if you own a gun for rabid animals, and really don't get it out otherwise.
I also have a chainsaw, and never get it out to cut trees, unless it has already fallen, or a danger.
EG, I have a chainsaw, but never use it to cut down trees for fuel.
Why do you object? Some areas have a strong local rabis population...
It's actually very clever technology and can be extremely valuable when used properly. It's a shame the company isn't ethical enough to maintain their reputation.
The way it works is they put audio sensors on roofs (mostly in high crime areas) and they listen for bangs. When multiple sensors hear a bang, they triangulate the position and try to determine if the bang was a gunshot then they can alert the police to investigate. The tech fundamentally works very well. It's not 100% accurate and it seems they are willing to work with police to fudge their analysis when asked.
Yeah for the past decade I’ve had awesome results by not doing anything during a controversy, and then sending DMCA requests and other digital cleanup methods to every source a few weeks later
The idea was that people’s system caches would have deleted stuff by then, so anyone that noticed at that point couldn’t go resurrect to attempt to start a Streisand
Browsers and the internet are super different now, but the same concept generally applies: people only care if you seem to care.
In Europe, companies selling to the police are extremely discrete and generally keep a hyper low profile, particularly when selling technology (dubious or otherwise). These deals generally work by 'befriending' politicians who can instruct police to purchase and that's all back-room type of stuff.
Generally, it's when a politician wants credit by claiming some success in reducing/detecting crime that these things get any press. The publicity focuses not on the company, but on the genius nature of the politicians decision making.