Applying AI to Public Safety and National Security with Iveda’s David Ly

This is Textron tv. Hey guys, thanks for the throw. We're here with David Lee, who's CEO for Iveta, and we're talking about, well, just how might we apply AI to improve national security and public safety, because, well, there's no shortage of use cases, but some things might be a higher priority than others.

Dam, welcome to the show. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me.

I think a day doesn't go by now where somebody doesn't talk about my great new thing for ai, but, um, how do we kind of think about this for the greater good as it were? Because there are a lot of, uh, pressing issues as it relates to national security and public safety. So from your perspective, are there things that we should be more focused on than others?

Well, that's a, that's a big question there. National security. Well, from our, from our experience as, as you know, the, the company doing business in the field, we, we do business with, with municipal police agencies all the way to, um, uh, regional and national, uh, security agencies, both our domestic and international, from my experience at all levels of, um, security or, or public safety concerns.

You know, I think what everybody's looking to satisfy is the lack of personnel and ai, or let's say technology in general is aimed at force, multiplying the resources that these agencies currently have. That that's a start there. You know, before I even jump into what does AI do, I wanna share with you, that's our real world experience.

When we do meet in front of these people and in front of the agencies in the conference room, it's not about, the cool technology is I've only got yay amount of time. I've got yay amount of people and, and, uh, folks in the field. What can you do that, that's really the, the sincere mentality, you know, no, there's no time and, and energy.

So we gotta multiply force, multiply resources that are available. Are you seeing any particular AI technologies gain more traction than others because either A, maybe their value is higher, or B, they're just simpler to I implement. I mean, where are we in the curve and what should we expect to see?

Definitely in the forensics, uh, utilization applications such as investigation, uh, going back after the fact, post a report, um, post an incident, uh, up to up to now, um, businesses and agencies across the world are still spending, and I'll use the word wasting way too much time in investigative work. What does that mean? Uh, sorting through docs, looking back at weeks, months of video footage and not knowing exactly where to start.

So we're talking days, days, forget about hours, just days and weeks of man hour to, uh, satisfy some of these, um, search and, and investigative work. AI has really, um, come and, and save the day. And so say, when it comes to, um, uh, investigations, how is it?

So Aveda being the, the video experts, we Aveda AI is a video search platform fastest in the world. I, I add, what do we do? Imagine an agency or any, um, organization might that already has existing video surveillance cameras or video that is brought to the agency for investigation purposes.

Well, up to date, we, the officer or the humans have to comb through this data and hopefully find something that matters or something that's relevant. AI technology, such as what Aveda offers, is imagine just telling the ai, I'm looking for a person in a brown polo, um, male driving a blue Honda. You could do that.

And guess what, in seconds, one or two second of that six month worth of video, you have highest probability pop up right in front of your screen. Now you tell me that's highly impactful to today's, uh, uh, workforce for law enforcement. We will hear a lot of concerns about, uh, preserving civil rights and all kinds of issues.

How do we strike a balance between, you know, solving the issue that we don't have enough people to enforce the law to the extent that we probably should be doing, but, um, we have this concern about, you know, making sure that we don't identify the wrong people for the wrong reasons. So where's the, where's the middle ground? Yeah, uh, very good question.

And being in the video surveillance in industry for over 20 years, Mike, you can imagine the, um, uh, uh, press interviews and questions that I get pertaining privacy. So I'll answer this confidently given technology there, there's always the, um, the, uh, misconception that technology does. The negative technology goes out and intrudes on your you and i's privacy.

Um, the fact of the matter in the real world of operation, um, there's not enough resources. And really the entities that are, uh, here to support and protect us don't have the time to, to care. Uh, let me tell you what that means is, and I, I I'll speak very bluntly, we all think we're so special.

We all think that, uh, people love looking at us. But no, we ourselves post ourselves on Facebook and the rest of social media. But in the public safety, uh, sector, nobody has time to see you do what you do in public.

But I can tell you one thing where technology comes in and assists these, these much needed, uh, uh, support from the professionals is that when we do need to find the bad guy, the AI or the technology comes in and assists at a much higher pace. Remember, we don't care who you were before you swiped that car, before you crossed the street or tossed the i, you did something bad spray painted on a bus before you did anything that, that brought attention to yourself. What the AI is doing is say, Hey, this person looking like this at this position and time, I need to find that person.

I need to find this exact criteria. Technology comes in and says, here's your highest probability, and guess what? It still requires the officer to go and verify view, go catch, apprehend, whatever the physical requirement is, and that's the proper, um, I would say explanation or description of how the technology works.

We talk technology, and by default, people think, oh my God, the technology is gonna go and in invade and intrude on our privacy technology doesn't know what to do. The technology is, is just there. And yes, AI has automations and it can, it can do a lot of things, um, autonomously, but granted it's still by direction of the human.

And we, and, and the professional sector and the official sector, from my experience engaging with all of them, it's, it's sad that they have to listen and hear about all the misconception because nobody has time. Nobody has time to deal with that. We barely have time to get the technology to actually function in our favor properly.

So nobody has time to worry about you picking your nose, uh, whatever it is that people are afraid of when it comes to privacy. Isn't it getting Easier for various enforcement agencies to collect the data that they need? Is there more video out there?

Is there more audio? Because, um, you know, depending on what city you're in, I don't see cameras everywhere and I don't see every one of those cameras belonging to the local police department either. So, um, where's the data coming from?

Very good question. And, um, you are correct. Uh, pertaining more domestic United States, um, you know, people are contributing data.

There's, there's cities that have what we call, uh, public private partnerships. That's when, uh, law enforcement partners with private organizations and enterprises, uh, for example, let's say a a, uh, local gas station, you know, already has cameras. Um, and that gas station contributes to the city or law enforcement by saying, Hey, I love it.

If I get a nine one one call in my area, by all means, those cameras that are pointing outward, use 'em please. 'cause I I need you to respond properly. You know, we, we forget that we as citizens prefer that in times of, of emergency or crisis, we want to help.

And that's, that's how, let's say agencies are getting their data. Now, I tell you, nobody's combing the streets intruding on any privacy, because technically we can't. It's more difficult than one might realize.

You don't just hack somebody. Hacking is a widely used word, but it's not easy. You know, one in a million guys know how to do that.

It's, and they don't go out there and try to hack you or I, right? We're, we're not special. So we're pretty safe.

But when it comes to data, it is still contributed data. Mike, you know, these agencies are not going out there. Um, you know, I want your data, gimme this, gimme that.

And when we do have public cameras, you know, it's, it's, um, public works. It's for traffic, it's for traffic counting, it's for red light, yellow light, green light. And now with technology, the good news is that seeing existing public works and traffic infrastructure can now assist law enforcement because why It's no longer just turning our lights green or red anymore, or it's not, it's no longer just counting how many cars past the, the intersection.

It can now help identify how many motorcycles, how many four wheel vehicles, how many 18 wheelers. There's so many things that when the, when this appropriate data is collected, it helps everything from city maintenance, public works, and public safety. You know, there's a lot of 18 wheelers going through this intersection.

We need, we need special lighting, special signings so that our kids don't cross this every day or build a bridge around it. This is what I'm seeing when it comes to, um, government agencies leveraging technology. It's, it's rarely, uh, conversations about, uh, I've got a bad guy, I need to seize some.

That's, that's a given. We do that every day. And if technology can assist, you bet it's, it's gonna make it more efficient.

And again, we need force multipliers. There's not enough people out there. Do we need clarity on what the definition of privacy really is?

Because, um, you know, when I look at common law basically suggests, you know, anything that happens in your home, you're king of your castle, and that's private. But anything that happens outside your house is in the public venue, and therefore is common knowledge. And, uh, back in the day, your neighbors knew you, where you were going and what you were doing.

And cameras and various public places are no different. Mike, I agree with you. A as a citizen and just as a normal dude walking around, that's what I believe.

You know, that's what I believe. And, and I'll say it again. I think we expose ourselves, uh, more on social media than would any public sector, uh, presence.

You know, we, we go ahead and self expose, but I step outta my house, and if there's a street camera, there's a store camera, we walk into the mall, we go to Disneyland, come on. It's, we're caught everywhere. But why are those things there?

They're safe measures. You know, if I go in, if I go around town breaking people's property, everybody deserves, the public deserves to know that I shouldn't be doing that. And, you know, take me off the streets.

Will you? That's, So do you think overall we might soon see a, a decline in crime rates and, uh, terrorism and all these other things because, uh, we are gonna have more visibility into what is happening around critical infrastructure or, um, for that matter, you know, just a plain old stolen car? I would agree with you.

I, I would answer yes. You know, it's, it's the, the old, uh, form of, of I think, uh, mitigation or just caution. You know, there's areas in the country, cities and the countries that implement red light cameras.

You know, we all drive without thinking, but we hit up an intersection that has a sign, you know, photo enforce. I think we all kind of, you know, but, you know, to the, the 10 and two, and we kind of look around and we slow down just by that near, uh, by human nature, things will be safer because we're, we're, we're more aware. And that's, that's really what it is.

And before you go and snatch something at, from a store and knowing that store has technology, that whatever you grab, um, they're gonna know and they're gonna know it's you who did it. So it's that, you know, you're gonna think twice. That whole, uh, um, uh, reaction of just people will think twice.

And being in technology for a long time, I can tell you one, one thing, something else that does happen. The more sophisticated the technology, the more sophisticated the criminals become. You know, we humans learn just like technology.

So, uh, we just, it's a catch up game. But yes, if we deploy advanced technology and we, uh, um, you and I are aware that hey, this safety measures in place, we're either gonna feel more safe or we're either gonna be, uh, uh, on watch, you know, we're gonna be more careful. Um, so yeah, it should deter.

I think that the word I'm looking for is deterrence, and that's, that's ideal when it comes to functional technology. All right, folks, you're heard in here. We can't afford to hire armies of police department personnel and all the other folks that are required to go with that.

It's just not feasible. But we can take a bite outta crime using ai. Hey David, thanks for being on the show.

Thanks, Mike for having me. And back to you guys in the studio.