How Waymo Handles Footage From Events Like the LA Immigration Protests

Waymo refused to answer Wired questions about the number of cameras inside its vehicles, exactly how long and if the company has already given images to the American federal police or a branch of the army. Karp, however, noted that the company’s engineering team sometimes uses information from sensors, including video sequences and other data, to execute simulations aimed at improving its technology. She says Waymo also puts limits for the two that can access the data and how long it is kept.

Waymo Robotaxi Service is currently available In the metropolitan region of Phoenix and certain parts of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin. In the relatively short time of the company in American cities, he showed a desire to comply with the requests for images of the police.

Agents working for the Mesa Police Service in Arizona and Chandler’s police services have requested and used Waymos images for criminal surveys since 2016, or on As long as the vehicles were In their cities, According to the reports of the ABC 15 of Phoenix. The police told the media in 2022 that they had used images of several cases, including an alleged rage incident behind the wheel. (The individual pleaded guilty after being accused of disorderly conduct.)

In May 2022, two months after the start of Waymo Limited robotaxi operations in San Francisco, The vice reported That a training document for the San Francisco police explicitly told the police that “autonomous vehicles” had images which could sometimes “help with the investigative tracks”.

In 2023, Waymo had received at least nine search mandates in San Francisco and in the county of Maricopa d’Arizona, its main markets at the time, according to statement de Bloomberg. One of the cases involved the murder of an Uber driver in 2021. While the San Francisco police said that he could not identify a specific Waymo vehicle which was near the crime scene, an officer argued that there were Waymo vehicles “probablely” caused “and had images of the victim, possible suspects and the crime scene, according to a Bloomberg. Waymo respected and provided images, but that ultimately did not lead to the arrest of the suspect, which was found guilty of the murder in 2023.

Last year, Wired reported This Waymo had continued two individuals for alleging pretendingly vandalizing his vehicles in San Francisco and had camera images of the cars of alleged incidents. (One of the cases is underway; the other was rejected last month.)

Waymo video recording and data collection practices are not unique. All vehicles with autonomous capacities are based on a combination of Lidar, radar and video data in order to operate. Cruise, the company of autonomous cars now disappeared managed by General Motors, would also have given camera images to the police on request.

Private owners of vehicles equipped with cameras can also deliberately hand over the images from the camera to the application of the laws. For example, the Berkeley, California police have received at least two sets of sequences from the owner of a Tesla Cybertruck who said that their car had been vandalized twice this year, according to documents obtained by Wired via a public file request.

Additional report by Paresh Dave.