Utah lawmaker wants police to disclose when they use artificial intelligence
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A proposed bill would require law enforcement officers to disclose when and how they use the technology in police reports.
This story was originally published from Utah News Dispatch.
A Utah lawmaker wants police departments to be more transparent about how they use artificial intelligence, proposing a new bill that would require officers to disclose when and how they use the technology in police reports.
Sponsored by Sen. Stephanie Pitcher, D-Millcreek, SB180 passed the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and Criminal Justice Committee on Monday evening with unanimous support. It will now go to the entire Senate for consideration before it heads to the House.
The bill does three things:
- It requires all Utah law enforcement agencies to create a policy regarding artificial intelligence that outlines which technologies the agency uses, and when and where the technology is permitted.
- It directs all police officers to disclose when artificial intelligence was used when creating a police report.
- And it requires the report’s author to include a certificate stating that they reviewed the report for accuracy.
Artificial intelligence has become increasingly prevalent in policing, with emerging technologies used for facial recognition, identifying patterns, watching trends and high-crime areas, monitoring social media and other open-source intelligence, and analyzing surveillance camera footage and data in real time. According to a U.S. Department of Justice report, one of the more common uses of artificial intelligence is video analysis, where programs can review notes and body-worn camera footage to help write police reports.
During the committee meeting, Pitcher said she knows of several police agencies in Utah that use Axon’s Draft One, which can create “high-quality police report narratives in seconds based on auto-transcribed body-worn camera audio,” according to a company press release.
Technologies like those from Axon — which manufactures cameras, weapons and software for police departments, including Salt Lake City’s — would still be permitted under Pitcher’s law. Officers would just have to disclose in public documents that they’re being used.
“Even since opening this bill, in Utah we are seeing more of a reliance on artificial intelligence. What this bill does is it creates certain minimum standards with regards to how that should be implemented,” Pitcher said on Tuesday.
Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com.
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