Community Groups Call on Commissioners to Stop AI Surveillance inCook County Jail
The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice along with the 84 community, faith, legal, health, policy, and advocacy organizations have sent a letter to the Cook County Board of Commissioners, calling on them to reject further attempts by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office to procure BriefCam AI surveillance technology for use inside Cook County Jail.
After concerns about potential civil and privacy rights violations and racial discrimination were raised by community organizations, civil liberties advocates, and directly impacted people, this proposal was pulled from the Technology Committee’s May meeting agenda. We remain deeply concerned, however, that the Sheriff’s Office is continuing to pursue BriefCam without the transparency, public scrutiny, or independent review that a proposal of this magnitude requires.
Before the County considers any technology that claims to improve safety in the jail, the Board must first review the human rights crisis at Cook County Jail, the Sheriff’s management of the facility, and the conditions that have contributed to preventable deaths and serious harm. Such a holistic, transparent review is urgent in light of the fact that a Cook County Sheriff’s Officer has been charged with bringing lethal drugs into the jail and others have been investigated for homicide in connection with the death of Martinez Duncan.
Briefcam has already been banned by the French Supreme Court due to privacy concerns and false positives that led to civil rights abuses. To our knowledge, BriefCam has never been used in a jail or prison.
