Police in the US city are testing real-time access to citizens’ cameras

A police force in the American city of Jackson is to conduct a test in which a team of police, after permission, will have access to real-time images from security cameras and smart doorbells of residents.

Police have set up a Real Time Crime Center for the month and a half test, Jackson Free Press reports . The equipment comes from the American companies PILEUM and Fusus. Fusus’ technology should provide the Real-Time Crime Center with a connection to live images of residents in the neighborhood.

If citizens have given permission, officers can view the images live and this should ensure that, after a crime has been identified, officers can follow the flight of a criminal via those cameras, for example. It is still unknown whether the test will be continued.

Civil rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation is critical of the plan. According to the organization, people can come into the picture who send their neighbors to the police and that is a violation of the private life of people who have not given permission. “If the police want to build a network of surveillance cameras, they should do it in a way that is transparent and accountable,” said the EFF.