The Kent County Sheriff’s Office wants businesses and residents to assist with government surveillance, but they say it is for “public safety”

The Kent County Sheriff’s Office recently announced the Kent Safety Network (KSN), which is a program to utilize resident and business cameras for the purpose of “enabling  the people of Kent County to help keep their community safe.”

There are two ways that people can participate in this program, which will allow the Kent County Sheriff’s Office to obtain more information and engage in more surveillance in the county. The first option is for residents who want to register external cameras they have on their home. In the FAQ portion of the KSN page it asks the following question: Can The Kent Safety Network remotely access my cameras at any time? Here is how the Sheriff’s Office responds – No. Registering cameras means the sheriff’s office will know where your cameras are located in the event of a crime or a critical incident. There is no direct access to any privately-owned cameras and the registry is only used to request footage if an incident were to occur in their vicinity.

The second option is called Business Camera Integration, where businesses would allow the Sheriff’s Office access to a company’s camera feed. This would not require the Kent County Sheriff’s Office to ask consent, since the businesses that participate would allow the Sheriff’s Office immediate real time access. In the FAQ of this section there is an interesting question: Does Axon Fusus utilize artificial intelligence? The response is – Yes, Axon Fusus utilizes artificial intelligence to rapidly search video provided to the system by users in order to mitigate criminal activity. All AI use cases exclude facial recognition, but may be utilized to automatically recognize weapons, vehicles of interest, etc.

According to the Kent Safety Network site they already have 182 registered cameras (residential cameras) and 2229 integrated cameras or business cameras participating in this program. This means there are an additional 2411 cameras that the Kent County Sheriff’s Office can access, which also includes the Flock Cameras they have been using since 2022.

If you recall, the Kent County Sheriff’s Office was only able to add this program of additional surveillance, because Rep. Scholten supported the program with $750,000 in federal public tax dollars for the Kent County Sheriff’s Office in February. At the time Rep. Scholten provided her rational for why she chose to fund the Kent County Sheriff’s Office by stating: “Out of those dozens of projects, I only get to choose 15. And so I choose the ones that matter most to this community. The ones that have, from my perspective, the best chance of doing the most good in the community. And that’s why I chose this project.”

The Kent Safety Network also has a video they created which I encourage people to watch (included below). The video, like all law enforcement videos, tries to communicate the notion that if they have more immediate information they will be able to respond faster. However, responding faster doesn’t always translate into more safety, but it does mean that cops can show up quicker and potentially use deadly force more frequently.

The other interesting thing about the video is that it feature the director of Government Affairs with the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, Josh Lunger, who is inviting businesses to participate in the program and integrate their cameras into the Sheriff’s Office program. At about 4:25 into the video Lunger says that having more businesses participate in this program will enhance community safety overall. Such a claim is patently false, since real community safety happens when public money is spent on meeting community needs, not more surveillance technology.