3 May 11-17, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | CuLture | Cafe | MusiC | miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | ▼ FLORIDA BIG BROTHER’S LISTENING AI SOFTWARE TO EAVESDROP ON FLORIDA PRISONER PHONE CALLS. BY ALEX DELUCA A company that uses surveillance software to monitor U.S. prisoners’ phone calls is on the verge of deploying its technology across the Sunshine State. LEO Technologies, a Los Angeles-based company that transcribes inmate communi- cations in real time using an artificial intelli- gence speech-to-text feature, is marketed as a way to monitor inmate health, improve prison security, and thwart crime. Despite spawning con- cerns over over- zealous surveillance and potential misuse, the software — known as Verus — has been sold and deployed across nearly a dozen states. After securing a spot on a proposed statewide budget, the company is about to add Florida prisons to its list of customers. Ahead of the 2023 state legislative session, LEO Technologies, through its chief execu- tive Scott Kernan, asked Florida lawmakers for $5 million in state funds to launch a pilot program at nearly two dozen Florida Depart- ment of Corrections (FDC) facilities, where it would monitor prisoner communications to “increase safety and security” and “detect criminal trends and inmate welfare patterns,” such as helping identify prisoners experienc- ing mental health episodes. “FDC will be at the forefront of aggregating authorized communications for intelligence and information to help keep communities across Florida safer,” the February 27 funding request (attached below) states. The proposal, known as a local funding initiative request, was sponsored by Republi- can Florida state Sen. Travis Hutson, who represents St. Johns and Putnam counties along with a sliver of Volusia. The request made it onto the 2023-24 Florida Senate’s proposed state budget with $2.5 million in state funding allotted for LEO Technologies’ project. The budget will soon go to the governor’s desk for approval. Based on Amazon Web Services Natural Language Processor machine-learning, the software can detect flagged words to help combat crime and security issues in correc- tional facilities, LEO Technologies says. As of mid-2020, Verus was in use at 26 prisons and jails in 11 U.S. states. According to the LEO Technologies website, the software was involved in nearly 90 suicide prevention incidents in 2019 alone. The tool has also been used to help in high-profile missing per- sons cases, the company says. But civil rights activists have raised con- cerns over the years about the artificial intel- ligence-powered technology. While constitutional protections against warrant- less search and seizure are curtailed for pris- oners while they are behind bars, activists maintain that the technology is overly intru- sive and sweeps through a huge volume of personal phone calls by incarcerated Ameri- cans, many of whom are still awaiting trial. In April 2020, several U.S. states began us- ing the software to scan prisoner calls for mentions of COVID-19 as a means to monitor outbreaks. Although LEO Technologies sent data to its clients boasting about flagging thousands of calls that spring based on key- words like “cough” and “infection,” concerns were raised that the software may also have been employed to screen public perception of jails during the pandemic. A 2021 Reuters investigation into LEO Technologies’ AI system found that some prison and jail officials have used the soft- ware to eavesdrop on calls about a wide range of personal subjects. In one instance, Alabama prison officials were found to have used the software to search for phone calls in which prisoners vouched for the facility’s cleanliness — seek- ing ammunition to fight litigation, according to Reuters. In Suffolk County, New York, the county jail was found to have been scanning up to 600,000 minutes worth of phone calls per month, at one point flagging a call in which an inmate told his father the jail was covering up a coronavirus outbreak. The Intercept’s 2020 report on LEO Tech- nologies indicated that it was backed by Elliot Broidy, the Republican National Committee’s ex-national deputy finance chair and former mega Donald Trump donor who was par- doned in 2021 after pleading guilty to con- spiring to violate foreign lobbying laws in connection with his work on behalf of Malay- sian and Chinese interests. Broidy is among those listed on a software technology patent granted to LEO Technolo- gies in February 2022. According to its site, LEO Technologies was founded by former law enforcement offi- cers “committed to law enforcement reform.” The company is part of a group of large-scale prison communication contracting compa- nies that includes Securus and GTL, both of which offer monitoring services but, unlike LEO Technologies, provide prison phone in- frastructure. LEO’s chief executive Kernan is a former California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation secretary. He is also on the board of directors for GEO Group, the na- tion’s largest private, for-profit prison firm. Neither LEO Technologies nor FDC has responded to New Times’ request for comment. | RIPTIDE | LEO Technologies’ inmate phone-monitoring pilot project secured a $2.5 million line item on the Florida 2023-2024 budget. Photo by Aaron Lambert/Getty Images DESPITE SPAWNING CONCERNS OVER POTENTIAL MISUSE, THE SOFTWARE HAS BEEN DEPLOYED ACROSS NEARLY A DOZEN STATES. register to win at miaminewtimes.com/promos COOL STUFF go here to WIN
