However, a recent case of drug trafficking in New York has generated enormous controversy over the massive deployment of this technology and the legal and privacy problems it could entail.

To explain this problem, Forbes gives this clear example. In March 2022, David Zayas was arrested while driving his car in New York. For the Police Department, his vehicle and behavior were considered suspicious, since an artificial intelligence tool had identified him as potentially linked to drug trafficking.

To reach this conclusion, the AI ​​had examined a database with 1.6 billion license plate records collected in New York State over the past 2 years and according to its analysis, the car had circulated in areas related to drug dealers on 9 trips between Massachusetts and New York.

After the arrest, the police found drugs, a gun and a large sum of money inside the vehicle and Zayas pleaded guilty to drug trafficking a year later.

This case, until now unknown to society, gives everyone a slight idea and one more example of how AI-driven surveillance is evolving in a rather positive way, although as expected it is also bringing with it quite a few questions about privacy aspects.

While automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) has been used to look for license plates of cars linked to specific crimes, this case used the technology to go a step further and analyze driving patterns of any vehicle captured by the 480 ALPR cameras in Westchester County over a period of time—two years.

The AI ​​also recorded details about the make, model, and color of the vehicles, even when the license plate was not visible or unknown.

Of course, these developments that are now coming to light have raised questions and, above all, many questions about privacy and violations of rights, since artificial intelligence carried out an "unprecedented search" in the database of captured vehicles.

David Zayas' lawyer, Ben Gold, considered that this surveillance system operated without judicial supervision and that the mass collection of data represented an invasion of privacy and a violation of the Fourth Amendment - the right to privacy and the right not to suffer an arbitrary invasion.

"Without judicial supervision, this type of system operates at the whim of each officer with access to it," says the lawyer.

A booming technology that does not cease to raise serious privacy questions

This case has only highlighted the increasing capabilities of this type of tool and raises concerns about how this technology is being used in other police departments throughout the United States or even worldwide. 

While the company has sold its technology to multiple police departments and local governments across the United States, there has been concern and doubt among civil rights activists about how the information collected by this surveillance network is being used and shared, which is expected to continue to grow.

In short, these privacy advocates are expressing enormous concerns about the lack of legal protections for citizens.

Some consider this to be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the applications of this novel technology and warn of the need for regulation and oversight to ensure a balance between security and privacy in today's society.