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ShotSpotter: Community Policing, Surveillance and Privacy Concerns

There is debate as to the the continued use of ShotSpotter in the city of Oakland.  The system was first used in Oakland in 2005.  Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and other city government officials wish to extend the use of the product, but the interim police chief  Sean Whent would prefer instead that implementation of ShotSpotter be cancelled, freeing up funds for other programs such as intervention programs meant to deter gang affiliation amongst young people.  As well, the Oakland police do wish to have more funds available for the use of the police helicopter, rather than continued spending on ShotSpotter.  There are residents who do feel that the presence of ShotSpotter devices deter gun violence, or can be used to catch people responsible for gun violence.  Other residents would prefer to see increased spending on social programs and gang intervention, rather than on ShotSpotter.  Along with the mayor, Oakland city councilmembers Rebecca Kaplan and Larry Reid have supported continuation and expansion of the system.  City government has been lobbied by ShotSpotter, drawing controversy, as the company had failed to register as a lobbyist, violating Oakland's Lobbyist Registration Act.  SpotShotter has registered as a lobbyist at the Federal Level and has spent over a $1million in lobbying efforts to get military contracts and grant with the Department of Justice 

ShotSpotter costs Oakland $264,000 a year.  The pricing for ShotSpotter can run a city $40,000 to $60,000 per square mile.  The system is used by San Francisco, Palo Alto, Richmond (CA) and Stockton (CA).  Nationwide, ShotSpotter (and ShotSpotter Flex) covers 267 square miles in total, being implemented in various urban centers.  In 2013, ShotSpotter had US 70 cities as clients, and clients in Brazil and Panama.  In 2014, ShotSpotter added 5 metro areas to its client base.  The company has also expanded into Puerto Rico, being installed in Bayamón and Trujillo Alto.  The city of New Orleans used to use the ShotSpotter system. In 2008, the FBI invested approximately $1million in ShotSpotter for New Orleans, however the NOPD chose not to truly implement ShotSpotter, resulting in the FBI taking the system away from the city.

ShotSpotter can pinpoint the location of a gun shot within 50 feet, triangulating with microphones placed in a city.  When gunfire, or suspected gunfire is detected in a city, ShotSpotter alerts the local police department to the sound.  ShotSpotter also has cloud-based services (ShotSpotter Flex) for smaller police departments, in which ShotSpotter employees provide alert assessment and act as dispatch for police.  ShotSpotter cannot detect indoor gunfire.  Even outdoors, the system does always detect gunfire. On Christmas Day of 2012, in Trenton (New Jersey), a shooting was undetected by nearby sensors, leading city officials to doubt the value of the system and to reject expansion of the program.  Also in New Jersey, members of the city of Plainview's police and local government reported that many gun shots, or alleged gun shots, had gone undetected by ShotSpotter.  

The system can also report false positives, with sensors detecting fireworks or other loud banging sounds unrelated to gunfire (construction sounds, automobile backfire, etc).  In Trenton, officers complained about the number of false alarms they were responding to.  In Newark (NJ), it was found that 75% of alerts, from the years 2010 to 2012, were false alarms.  In 2013, residents and city government debated the value of spending $80,000 annually to maintain the inaccurate detection system.  Newark's police department had concerns over the diversion of police resources to false alarms. The city government of York, Pennsylvania found that the 60% accuracy rate they had with ShotSpotter was too low for the high, ongoing costs, including a $75,000 yearly maintenance fee.  Concerns over false positives being a drain on police was a deciding factor in Detroit (MI) not entering into a contract with ShotSpotter.  In Florida, the Broward Sheriff's Office spent a half-million dollars of FBI funding on ShotSpotter, and determined that the system was not cost-effective, leading to only four arrests in the year from 2012 to 2013 and generated a high rate of false alarms - wasting police resources.  Miami-Dade's police department stopped using ShotSpotter in November of 2013, due to the system calling in false alarms while missing detection of actual gunshots.  

In the city of Oakland, it is not known how many false positives were recorded by ShotSpotter, and it is also not known the rate of which the system failed to detect gunfire.  Oakland police data says that in February of this year, ShotSpotter recorded 258 incidents of gunfire in East and West Oakland, while there had only been 197 phone calls from citizens reporting gunfire.  It cannot be determined how much discrepancy between the two numbers is caused by ShotSpotter reporting false positives.  During 2012 and 2013, ShotSpotter detected 8,769 alleged incidents of gunfire; citizens only called in to report 1,136 incidents during the same time period.  The current acting Oakland police chief has concerns about the time and resources wasted chasing false ShotSpotter leads.  

Privacy concerns have been raised regarding ShotSpotters ability to record audio.  In Oakland, citizens were largely unaware that the system records audio after detecting a loud sound.  Oakland police claimed that the audio only records after an alleged gunshot, and have stated that audio from ShotSpotter has been used to make convictions against perpetrators of gun violence.  However the Oakland police have not been clear to the public that the flawed system often picks up on false positives, loud sounds that are no gun related, and that the system records during false positives.  In 2010, a ShotSpotter in Palo Alto recorded the uncontrolled descent of a plane, which then crashed into home.  The audio began recording before the plane impacted; the sound of plane's engines low to the ground was enough to trigger the recording.  The audio recording, which was obtained by reporters after the crash, revealed to the Bay Area in 2010 that ShotSpotter did record incidents other than gunfire.  In 2012, there were legal concerns over recorded audio relating to a shooting in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where ShotSpotter had made the claim that their devices did not record voices.  ShotSpotter stated that their devices worked with acoustic sensors, and were not equipped with what they considered to be microphones.  Ralph Clark, the President of ShotSpotter, told Kron4 news that the device does record audio, but only for 6 seconds after a gunshot is fired.  However Clark did not appear to clarify to Kron4 that false positives were possible, and that audio would record during false positives.  As well, the Palo Alto recording, which was released to the press was 11 seconds in duration, not 6 seconds.  The time duration has either been changed since 2010, is different from city to city, or Clark gave the incorrect time to Kron4.  

There are cities and county agencies that have implemented a video competent with ShotSpotter; camera systems will track to a location pinpointed to by the ShotSpotter system and begin recording video for a set period of time.  Nassau County in New York implimented cameras to their ShotSpotter in 2013.  Wilmington (Delaware) had camera systems that worked with ShotSpotter back in 2009.  Paterson, NJ had a system with cameras in 2007.  Surveillance cameras have become more advanced over the years, added by software that allows for facial recognition or license plate scanning capabilities.  

There are those who are concerned that ShotSpotters can be used for surveillance on protests.  Protest situations might perhaps be loud enough to trigger a ShotSpotter and begin recording.  Even if the device records in 6 seconds bursts, or 11 seconds bursts, whatever the case may be, a protest could have enough percussive sounds to repeatedly trigger the ShotSpotter, making many recordings in the duration of a protest.  Even a political rally with amplified sound or outdoor community organizational meeting might be loud enough to trigger a ShotSpotter into recording.  Some people fear that ShotSpotter microphones can be turned on remotely, without first being triggered by a loud sound.  For purposes of diagnostics, it does seem likely that there could be a method of recording without the need for a loud sound to trigger to microphone.  It does also seem likely that there could be a method of changing the recording length.  However, it is not known if police agencies that use ShotSpotter can access diagnostic functions of the system.  

There are cities in the US that have found the costs of spending police resources on false ShotSpotter alarms has not been worth the supposed benefits of the program.  There have been cities that have cancelled service contracts with ShotSpotter, and there have been cities that have chosen not to enter contracts in the first place.  There are cities that are choosing to prioritize face-to-face policing, emphasizing genuine interaction between officers and community members, as well as increased social programs, rather than continuously invest in the maintaining sensor packets.  In Oakland, the acting/interim police chief has decided that the costs of the program outweigh the benefits, and that investing in a working relationship with people in communities can be more informative than ShotSpotter.  This is a change from the previous police chief.  Over the years that ShotSpotter has been in existence, questions over privacy have not been resolved.  People want to know how sensitive ShotSpotter devices are, and how low of a decibel level the devices can detect, and how long they record.  There is a demand in transparency in how the devices work overall, including any hidden or diagnostic features would could allow the devices to be used for surveillance.


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* http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Oakland-cops-aim-to-scrap-gunfire-detecting-5316060.php
* http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/shotspotter-lobbied-oakland-officials-in-apparent-violation-of-law/Content?oid=3907581
* http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2012/05/30/new-surveillance-program-listens-for-gunshots-get-police-there-in-minutes/
* http://singularityhub.com/2013/08/09/sensors-report-gunfire-directly-to-police-in-70-u-s-cities-no-911-call-needed/
* http://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2014/05/20/638053/10082493/en/ADDITIONAL-CITIES-SIGN-ON-TO-USE-SHOTSPOTTER-TO-COMBAT-ILLEGAL-URBAN-GUNFIRE.html
* http://www.wwltv.com/news/High-tech-Spot-Shotter--208596831.html
* http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20111020005699/en/ShotSpotter-World-Leader-Gunshot-Detection-Alert-Analysis
* http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2012/01/trenton_council_rejects_expans.html
* http://adrianmapp.blogspot.com/2013/02/time-to-end-failed-shotspotter.html
* http://www.wtae.com/investigations/critics-say-gunshot-detection-system-misfires/20854550
* http://privacysos.org/node/1393
* http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_14428180
* http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120111/NEWS/201110339
* http://news.kron4.com/news/video-oaklands-shotspotter-technology-adds-audio-capabilities
* http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/08/06/nassau-county-shotspotter-system-gets-video-upgrade
* http://www.wdel.com/story.php?id=57117
* http://www.bbwexchange.com/pubs/2007/09/26/page1403-1028888.asp
* http://www.wnyc.org/story/311533-gunshot-detection-sensors-newark-result-17-arrests-over-three-years
* http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2014/06/miami_politicians_push_shotspotter_on_police_despite_complaints_about_gunshot_detection_system.php

* Debate in Detroit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cJL6QyX0Xo
* Debate in Tenton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCpMo9WsVSw