NEW YORK CITY (AP) — New York City authorities revealed 3 brand-new modern policing gadgets Tuesday, consisting of a robotic dog that critics called scary when it initially signed up with the authorities pack 2 1/2 years back.
The brand-new gadgets, which likewise consist of a GPS tracker for taken cars and trucks and a cone-shaped security robotic, will be presented in a way that is “transparent, consistent and always done in close collaboration with the people we serve,” said authorities Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who signed up with Mayor Eric Adams and other authorities at a Times Square interview where the security robotic and the mechanical canine nicknamed Digidog were shown.
“Digidog is out of the pound,” said Adams, a Democrat and previous law enforcement officers. “Digidog is now part of the toolkit that we are using.”
The city’s very first robotic authorities dog was rented in 2020 by Adams’ predecessor, previous Mayor Bill de Blasio, however the city’s agreement for the gadget was interrupted after critics derided it as scary and dystopian.
Adams said he won’t acquiesce anti-robot dog pressure.
“A few loud people were opposed to it and we took a step back,” the mayor said. “That is not how I operate. I operate on looking at what’s best for the city.”
Adams said the remote-controlled, 70-pound (32-kilogram) Digidog will be released in dangerous circumstances like captive standoffs beginning this summer season.
“If you have a barricaded suspect, if you have someone that’s inside a building that is armed, instead of sending police in there, you send Digidog in there,” he said. “So these are smart ways of using good technologies.”
The tracking system called StarChase will permit authorities to launch a GPS tag that will connect itself to a taken car so that officers can track the vehicle’s area. The New York Police Department’s pilot program for utilizing the system will last 90 days, authorities said.
The Autonomous Security Robot, which Adams compared to a Roomba, will be released inside the Times Square train station in a seven-month pilot program beginning this summer season, authorities authorities said.
The gadget, utilized in shopping mall and other areas for a number of years, will in the beginning be signed up with by a human partner, authorities said.
Civil libertarians and authorities reform supporters questioned the requirement for the modern gadgets.
“This latest announcement is just the most recent example of how Mayor Adams allows unmitigated overspending of the NYPD’s massively bloated budget,” said Ileana Mendez-Penate, program director of Communities United for Police Reform. “The NYPD is buying robot dogs and other fancy tech while New Yorkers can’t access food stamps because city agencies are short-staffed, and New Yorkers are getting evicted because they can’t access their right to counsel.”
Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, said: “The NYPD is turning bad science fiction into terrible policing. New York deserves real safety, not a knockoff RoboCop.”
