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Yes it is very important. Shotspotter is like a DVR. It's always "recording", but it is running on a very very short recording loop. The detection of gunshots

Yes it is very important. Shotspotter is like a DVR. It's always "recording", but it is running on a very very short recording loop. The detection of gunshots is based on an algorithm. When triggered, it saves a few seconds before the sound and several seconds afterward. It is different than police just being able to pull up the recordings for a certain street corner from 2 weeks ago or even a day ago and listen in on people's conversations. The case in question came from a shotspotter recording gunshots, and the short clip also happened to include speech within it since it directly followed the sound of shots.

bhaney 3y ago
> it is running on a very very short recording loop I'm curious what your source for that information is
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  They made it up
jcrawfordor 3y ago
ShotSpotter's own public statements say that audio is retained for 30 hours, see e.g. https://www.soundthinking.com/faqs/shotspotter-privacy-faqs/ https://www.soundthinking.com/faqs/shotspotter-privacy-faqs/. In the past they provided Albuquerque with a document that said 72 hours, but I believe they have been reducing that period over time. It may also depend on their specific contract with the law enforcement agency. Still, we know that they must retain recordings, because they do take requests from customers to reanalyze data that did not result in an alert. For convenience, the most relevant text: "If the system misses a gunfire incident, police may contact the company to see if there is any audio or location evidence. In this case, only authorized ShotSpotter personnel with proper credentials can access sensor audio to search. Their search is limited to the 30- hour sensor storage timeframe." ShotSpotter used to have significantly fewer privacy protections, and retention was indefinite early in the product's life. Fortunately, a combination of legal challenges and statutory privacy policies among their customers have lead to them significantly improving their privacy controls over time.
bikezen 3y ago
Is that, like provable though, thats my biggest issue. Cities are allowing a private company to mass deploy microphones all over (mostly lower income) areas and just _trusting_ them to not be keeping recordings.
helpfulclippy 3y ago
How would we know if this is true? For instance, is the source code subject to independent review, with verifiable builds made from that source so that all deployments have to show matching hashes? Or is more of a pinky-swear kind of a thing? If so, is the pinky swear even documented somewhere?

bhaney 3y ago

> it is running on a very very short recording loop I'm curious what your source for that information is

wahnfrieden 3y ago
They made it up

jcrawfordor 3y ago

ShotSpotter's own public statements say that audio is retained for 30 hours, see e.g. https://www.soundthinking.com/faqs/shotspotter-privacy-faqs/ https://www.soundthinking.com/faqs/shotspotter-privacy-faqs/. In the past they provided Albuquerque with a document that said 72 hours, but I believe they have been reducing that period over time. It may also depend on their specific contract with the law enforcement agency. Still, we know that they must retain recordings, because they do take requests from customers to reanalyze data that did not result in an alert. For convenience, the most relevant text: "If the system misses a gunfire incident, police may contact the company to see if there is any audio or location evidence. In this case, only authorized ShotSpotter personnel with proper credentials can access sensor audio to search. Their search is limited to the 30- hour sensor storage timeframe." ShotSpotter used to have significantly fewer privacy protections, and retention was indefinite early in the product's life. Fortunately, a combination of legal challenges and statutory privacy policies among their customers have lead to them significantly improving their privacy controls over time.

bikezen 3y ago

Is that, like provable though, thats my biggest issue. Cities are allowing a private company to mass deploy microphones all over (mostly lower income) areas and just _trusting_ them to not be keeping recordings.

helpfulclippy 3y ago

How would we know if this is true? For instance, is the source code subject to independent review, with verifiable builds made from that source so that all deployments have to show matching hashes? Or is more of a pinky-swear kind of a thing? If so, is the pinky swear even documented somewhere?