DHS Needs a Fleet of AI-Powered Surveillance Vehicles

The US Division of Homeland Safety is looking for to develop a brand new cellular surveillance platform that fuses synthetic intelligence, radar, high-powered cameras, and wi-fi networking right into a single system, based on federal contracting data reviewed by WIRED. The know-how would mount on 4×4 autos able to reaching distant areas and reworking into rolling, autonomous remark towers, extending the attain of border surveillance far past its present fastened websites.

The proposed system surfaced Friday after US Customs and Border Safety quietly printed a presolicitation discover for what it’s calling a “Modular Cell Surveillance System,” or M2S2. The itemizing contains draft technical paperwork, knowledge necessities, and design goals.

DHS didn’t reply to a request for remark.

If M2S2 performs as described, border patrol brokers may park their autos, increase a telescoping mast, and inside minutes begin detecting movement a number of miles away. The system would rely closely on so-called laptop imaginative and prescient, a sort of “synthetic intelligence” that permits machines to interpret visible knowledge body by body and detect shapes, warmth signatures, and motion patterns. Such algorithms—beforehand developed for use in struggle drones—are skilled on 1000’s if not tens of millions of pictures to tell apart between folks, animals, and autos.

The event of M2S2 comes amid the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on undocumented immigrants throughout the US. As a part of this push, which has sparked widespread protests and condemnation for the brutal ways utilized by immigration authorities,

Congress boosted DHS’s discretionary price range authority to roughly $65 billion. The GOP’s “One Massive Stunning Invoice” allocates over $160 billion for immigration enforcement and border measures—most of it directed to DHS—with the funds scheduled to be distributed over a number of years. The administration has sought to extend DHS funding by roughly 65 %, proposing the biggest growth within the company’s historical past to fund new border enforcement, detention capability, and immigration surveillance initiatives.

In keeping with paperwork reviewed by WIRED, areas of objects focused by the system could be pinpointed on digital maps inside 250 ft of their true location (with a stretch objective of round 50 ft) and transmit that knowledge throughout an app known as TAK—a government-built tactical mapping platform developed by the US Protection Division to assist troops coordinate actions and keep away from pleasant fireplace.

DHS envisions two modes of operation: one with an agent on web site, and one other the place the vehicles sit largely unattended. Within the latter case, the autos onboard AI would conduct the surveillance and ship distant operators alerts when it detects exercise. Missions are to be logged begin to end, with video, maps, and sensor knowledge retained for at least 15 days, locked towards deletion “beneath any circumstances.”