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Axon OpensImaging Research Office in Finland, Hires Juha AlakarhuTThe

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February 06, 2018  |  

Axon, a global leader in connected law enforcement technologies, today announced the addition of a new imaging engineering team led by industry expert Juha Alakarhu. The team is working from Axon's new research and development office based in Tampere, Finland. This group will focus on enhancing the capabilities of Axon's future wearable and in-car cameras and developing a platform for future advancements that leverage Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

“We are thrilled to bring this talented group ofimaging engineers on board,” says Axon CEO and founder Rick Smith. “We neverstop trying to improve upon the technology we produce for our customers. Weknow this team will take it to another level, creating next generation breakthroughsfor our body-worn and in-car cameras.”

Alakarhu, a well-known imaging technologyvisionary, has been instrumental in imaging breakthroughs over the last 14years with the development of several industry-first technologies insmartphones and VR. With experience leading camera technology teams at Nokiaand Microsoft, he most recently led imaging for Nokia's OZO team in Finland.Alakarhu has been responsible for end-to-end imaging including physicalcomponents, imaging algorithms and architecture.

 

Axon CEO saysfacial recognition not accurate enough for police body cameras

Aug 12, 2018 | Chris Burt

CATEGORIES BiometricsNews  |  Facial Recognition  |  Law Enforcement

Facial recognition is not yet accurate enough to be added to bodycameras, Axon CEO Rick Smith said in a recent earnings call, Gizmodo reports. Smith acknowledged privacy and policy concerns, but also said that accuracy thresholds reached by the technology are not sufficient to enable operational decisions.

Axon created an AI ethics board earlier this year to consider the implications of building powerful new technologies into police body cameras, and was recently reported to be considering implementing real-time facial recognition in its products.

“This is one where we think you don’t want to be premature and end upeither where you have technical failures with disastrous outcomes or… there’ssome unintended use-case where it ends up being unacceptable publicly in termsof long-term use of the technology,” Smith said during the call.

The statement comes months after facial recognition provider Kairosreportedly declined to partner with Axon. Kairos CEO Brian Brackeen said in a recent TechCrunch editorial that the technology is too vulnerable to bias, invasion of privacy and abuse for governments to use facial recognition.

Ongoing trials of facial recognition for public surveillance by UK police have had uninspiring accuracy rates, with false positives above 90 percent. An increasingly public debate on the place in law enforcement and society of facial recognition and biometrics in general has drawn in companies from  Amazon to Microsoft and SensibleVision.