COUNTRY EVIDENCE FILE

KORU / WHO IS WATCHING? · PILOT 1.9

COUNTRY PROFILE · NORTH AMERICA

United StatesEvidence file

A readable record of documented public CCTV, AI scope, facial recognition, private-camera links, safeguards, and the jurisdictional conditions around where data may be hosted. It is not a surveillance score.

REFERENCE PLACELos Angeles

LAST SOURCE VINTAGECCTV source updated 25 Jun 2025; WJP score 2025

PRIVACY RIGHTS72.1 / 100

THE EVIDENCE STACK

Seven records
Different claims

Every measure has its own source, date, and scope. The country profile keeps them distinct by design.

CCTV REFERENCE EVIDENCE

12.40 cameras / 1k

46,766 reported cameras in Los Angeles. Some cameras and police-integrated feeds may extend beyond city limits.

Open CCTV source

FACE / BIOMETRIC

Documented active use

Federal law-enforcement agencies · 2024-03
GAO reports that seven Justice and Homeland Security law-enforcement agencies used facial recognition to support criminal investigations, with uneven policy and training arrangements.

U.S. GAO · 2024

AI USE SCOPE

Facial identification

2023-09 · High confidence
GAO reports that seven federal law-enforcement agencies used facial-recognition services to support criminal investigations and identified uneven training and policy arrangements.

SETTING: Retrospective investigation
DECISION ROLE: Assistive search
SCALE: Multi-city or agency programme
SAFEGUARDS: Safeguard gaps documented

Federal-agency evidence does not describe the broad range of state, local, commercial, or border deployments.

U.S. GAO · federal law enforcement

PRIVATE-CAMERA LINK

No comparable public evidence located

Pilot evidence review · 2026-08
Local direct-access and camera-request programmes are reported, but the review did not validate one national mechanism that can be compared responsibly with the pilot’s country records.

No comparable public source located in this review

SAFEGUARDS CONTEXT

72.1 / 100

WJP 2025 Factor 4.6: protection from arbitrary interference with privacy in practice. The score changed -7.0 points from 2024.

Open WJP source

SUPPLIER / PROCUREMENT

Documented record

SoundThinking, Inc.
ShotSpotter acoustic gunshot-detection service, producing alerts for police response.

PUBLIC BODY: New York Police Department
SCOPE: New York City three-year contract renewal.
RECORD TYPE: Supplier statement
EVIDENCE DATE: 2025-02

This is a supplier announcement and relates to acoustic detection rather than CCTV or facial recognition.

SoundThinking — NYPD ShotSpotter renewal

DATA INFRASTRUCTURE & JURISDICTION

Where data may sit, and what can govern it

These are separate contextual records. Data-centre capacity is not evidence of surveillance access; legal powers are not evidence of their use.

CONTEXT, NOT PROOF

Rules are sector-specific across federal and state systems; facility count does not identify public-sector or surveillance hosting.

High confidence

DATA-CENTRE CONTEXT

National facility context

2024
NTIA states that the United States has more than 5,000 data centres. The figure is infrastructure context, not evidence about users, data, or authority access.

NTIA · 2024

DATA RESIDENCY

No general federal residency rule

2025
Congressional research describes sector-specific federal requirements rather than one general national data-residency rule.

Congressional Research Service · 2025

PUBLIC-SECTOR CLOUD

Federal cloud-authorisation framework

2026
FedRAMP documents a federal security-authorisation framework for cloud products and services; it does not disclose agency workload contents.

GSA · FedRAMP

LAWFUL-ACCESS CONTEXT

Statutory provider-disclosure powers

2024
The Department of Justice describes CLOUD Act and Stored Communications Act mechanisms. This is legal context, not a claim about a named public-surveillance dataset.

U.S. DOJ · CLOUD Act resources

SOURCE HISTORY

When the record changed.

The timeline preserves source vintages and review dates so changes can be examined rather than announced without a record.

2024
Safeguards baseline
WJP privacy-rights score: 79.1 / 100.
Open source
2025-06
CCTV evidence source
Los Angeles: 46,766 reported cameras; 12.40 per 1,000 people in the documented reference place.
Open source
2025
Safeguards update
WJP privacy-rights score: 72.1 / 100 (-7.0 points year on year).
Open source
2024-03
Facial-recognition record
GAO reports that seven Justice and Homeland Security law-enforcement agencies used facial recognition to support criminal investigations, with uneven policy and training arrangements.
Open source
2026-08
Camera-integration record
Local direct-access and camera-request programmes are reported, but the review did not validate one national mechanism that can be compared responsibly with the pilot’s country records.
No comparable public source located in this review
2023-09
AI use-scope record
Facial identification · Retrospective investigation · Assistive search. GAO reports that seven federal law-enforcement agencies used facial-recognition services to support criminal investigations and identified uneven training and policy arrangements.
Open source
2025-02
Supplier / procurement record
ShotSpotter acoustic gunshot-detection service, producing alerts for police response.
Open source
2024
Data-infrastructure context
NTIA states that the United States has more than 5,000 data centres. The figure is infrastructure context, not evidence about users, data, or authority access.
Open source
2024
Lawful-access context
The Department of Justice describes CLOUD Act and Stored Communications Act mechanisms. This is legal context, not a claim about a named public-surveillance dataset.
Open source
28 Jun 2024
Incident / redress record
Remedy or reform: A settlement followed Robert Williams’s wrongful arrest after Detroit Police relied on an incorrect facial-recognition result in a 2020 investigation.
Open source
2026-08
Layer evidence review
Record category: Partial layer record. This version preserves gaps rather than treating them as evidence of absence.
No comparable public source located in this review

REVIEWED PUBLIC UPDATES

Accepted additions and corrections.

Community submissions remain private until an editor checks the source, scope, and status. Only accepted changes appear here.

Loading reviewed updates…

WHAT WE KNOW

01The pilot’s CCTV source reports 46,766 cameras for Los Angeles, equivalent to 12.40 per 1,000 people in that documented geography.

02GAO reports that seven Justice and Homeland Security law-enforcement agencies used facial recognition to support criminal investigations, with uneven policy and training arrangements.

03Local direct-access and camera-request programmes are reported, but the review did not validate one national mechanism that can be compared responsibly with the pilot’s country records.

04GAO reports that seven federal law-enforcement agencies used facial-recognition services to support criminal investigations and identified uneven training and policy arrangements.

05SoundThinking, Inc.: ShotSpotter acoustic gunshot-detection service, producing alerts for police response.

06Remedy or reform: Williams v City of Detroit facial-recognition settlement

07NTIA states that the United States has more than 5,000 data centres. The figure is infrastructure context, not evidence about users, data, or authority access.

WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW

01Some cameras and police-integrated feeds may extend beyond city limits.

021 supplemental layer has an explicit evidence gap. A gap means the review did not locate comparable public evidence; it does not mean the practice is absent.

03The pilot does not make a national camera-total claim unless the underlying source itself reports a national estimate.

QUESTIONS THIS RECORD RAISES

Prompts for public scrutiny, not legal advice or a conclusion about any system’s lawfulness.

01Which public body owns, operates, or oversees the documented system in Los Angeles, and where is that responsibility published?

02What retention period, access rule, independent oversight, and public complaint route apply to the documented record?

03When the documented system creates a biometric alert, what human review occurs before a person is stopped, investigated, or otherwise affected?

04Does the supplier statement disclose contract scope, assessment, audit, renewal, and termination arrangements for the named system?

READ THE METHOD

This file is one part of KORU’s public-space chapter. It does not compare hidden surveillance capacity or decide whether a practice is lawful.

Open methodology