Photo courtesy of MARK43 Police officer body camera footage is transcribed directly into the ReportAI interface developed by software company Mark43. Police departments across the country are increasingly using artificial intelligence to help write reports, analyze evidence, and manage large amounts of digital data from body cameras, surveillance systems, and case files.
Hundreds of people have filled the streets of downtown in protest, marching in front of businesses and government buildings waving signs and shouting. Overhead, a police drone records footage of the crowd. Nearby traffic cameras and license plate readers capture faces, vehicles, and movements along your route.
Experts say artificial intelligence can analyze hours of footage in minutes, making it easier for police to track and target protesters even after the protests have ended.
As law enforcement agencies increasingly deploy AI, some human rights advocates, legal scholars and law enforcement experts have warned that the technology could increase surveillance, introduce hidden bias into investigations and make it harder to challenge evidence in court. They are also concerned about a future in which AI will take a more active role in law enforcement and criminal investigations.
“Of particular concern is how these tools could enhance that kind of oversight and enforcement,” said Rachel Levinson Waldman, director of the Freedom and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law policy organization at New York University School of Law. Levinson-Waldman has written extensively about the risks of police surveillance and the unregulated use of AI in policing.
Artificial intelligence in law enforcement is not new. Law enforcement agencies have been using data-driven automation tools for decades, including facial recognition systems, automated license plate readers, predictive police models, and video analytics that flag objects and activities in recorded footage.
What is changing is the speed, scope, and complexity of these tools. As police amass vast amounts of digital evidence, from body camera footage and surveillance video to jail calls, social media records and case files, AI is increasingly being used to help categorize, search, and analyze that information.
“AI will basically be able to sort through overwhelming amounts of data in ways that we haven’t seen yet, and it will give police, prosecutors, and governments more power over us in ways that many of us would find very uncomfortable,” said George Washington University law professor and author of the book Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, author of “Self-Surveillance.”
Chris Moore, a computer scientist and professor at the Santa Fe Institute, a research and education center, said the technology is advancing faster than government agencies, regulators and courts can fully assess its impact, raising questions about transparency, accountability and the role automated systems should play in police decisions.
“It is no exaggeration to say that the speed at which technologically produced evidence is being employed and the aggressiveness with which it is being promoted is making it difficult for the legal community to keep up,” Moore said.
State legislatures and police departments are developing rules governing how AI can be used in public safety settings. While some agencies have adopted internal policies or vendor-specific guidance, there is no consistent national framework, and state-level approaches remain limited and uneven.
At least two states, California and Utah, have recently enacted laws regulating the use of generative AI in police report writing, requiring disclosure when AI is used and adding accuracy and oversight safeguards.
More broadly, more than a dozen states have passed laws regulating related technologies such as facial recognition, drone surveillance and automatic license plate readers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
emerging technology
Leading companies providing AI-powered tools for law enforcement include Axon, Motorola Solutions, TRULEO, Flock Safety, and Clearview AI. The company’s products can search body-worn camera footage, analyze large datasets, review digital evidence and case files, and identify potential suspects through facial recognition.
Some of these systems are built into centralized platforms that can retrieve and search data from confidential databases and police records.
Mark43, a cloud-based software company serving more than 300 public safety agencies, offers two AI-powered tools: ReportAI helps police officers write reports using information from dispatch records and body camera footage, while BriefAI summarizes incident information for investigators and supervisors.
Law enforcement agencies can choose which AI capabilities are enabled and who has access to them, and the system maintains an audit log of AI-assisted activities. Mark43 told Stateline that dozens of government agencies are using, testing and evaluating AI capabilities.
“Our core mission is to help responders spend less time on administrative tasks and more time serving their communities,” said Wendy Gilbert, Mark43’s senior vice president of products.
Some experts are wary of AI being used to make decisions that could impact people’s rights and freedoms, such as identifying suspects, recommending enforcement actions, or influencing arrests. Critics warn that the output produced by AI can make mistakes, reflect bias in the underlying data, and create a risk that officers and investigators will place too much weight on the technology’s recommendations.
They also argue that many AI systems operate in ways that are difficult for the public, and in some cases even police officers, to fully understand.
One cause for concern is the potential emergence of “policing by proxy.” Future technology could integrate body camera footage, camera networks, and other data sources into a single system that can generate investigative leads, identify potential suspects, and suggest connections between incidents.
Even if humans are responsible for the final decisions, critics say such systems can shape research judgments in ways that make it more difficult to understand how conclusions are reached.
“All that data will be thrown into an AI model and we’ll be querying the AI model to see who is the most likely suspect,” George Washington University’s Ferguson said. “The AI performs agent analysis to come up with an answer. Police and prosecutors then have to work backwards to see if it is accurate.”
Mr Ferguson warned that this would upend the traditional investigative process.
“We’ve never started with an answer and had people work backwards,” he said. “There are very real constitutional, statutory and practical risks to this new model of policing.”
AI companies and some law enforcement agencies say the technology is designed to supplement, not replace, police officers. They stress that officials are responsible for reviewing, validating, and approving information generated by AI, and that the tool aims to reduce administrative tasks and help people navigate large amounts of data more efficiently.
“AI should increase responsibility, not reduce it, which is why we are doing everything we can to provide transparency, governance, and human control,” said Zach Burden, lead product manager for AI at Mark43.
In recent years, a growing number of police officers across the country have been accused of misusing AI-powered tools, such as automated license plate reading systems, available to departments to track people for personal reasons.
In April, a former Costa Mesa, California, police officer pleaded guilty to using law enforcement databases and flock safety cameras to monitor his wife, mistress, and several romantic rivals. Similar allegations have surfaced in Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
Flock Safety, one of the nation’s largest providers of automatic license plate readers, uses roadside cameras to capture images and videos of passing vehicles, including license plates and basic vehicle details, and store them in a searchable law enforcement database.
NPR reported in February that some communities are reconsidering their use of automatic license plate reading systems, and at least 30 cities have ended or terminated their contracts since early 2025 amid growing concerns about surveillance and data sharing.
Representatives from Flock Safety were not available for an interview with Stateline prior to publication. In a blog post in May, the company said abuse of its systems is rare and noted that persistent audit logs help identify and investigate unauthorized access.
The company said its camera network allows government agencies to search for missing people, link cases across jurisdictions and identify suspects more quickly.
Reorganization of public security operations
While some law enforcement agencies are moving ahead with early deployments, others are taking a more cautious approach in assessing the potential benefits and risks.
In Maryland, the Montgomery County Police Department, one of the state’s largest law enforcement agencies, is in the early stages of exploring potential uses for AI, including tools to support non-emergency calls, translation and transcription services, and report generation to reduce administrative workload and improve efficiency.
“We want to bring technology into policing, but we need to make sure we do it safely, that we do it efficiently, and that when we do, we set the community and ourselves up for success,” said Lt. Cody Fields, director of media and public relations for the police department.
In Arkansas, authorities are developing the Arkansas Criminal Intelligence Network. It is a centralized cloud platform designed to connect data across law enforcement agencies in the state and support the use of advanced AI-powered analytical tools.
In Hawaii, the Maui County Council earlier this month approved a $1.7 million expansion of high-tech police tools, including AI-powered cameras and drones, to support real-time surveillance and emergency response. Last year, the Honolulu Police Department announced a pilot program with Axon. The program provides generative AI capabilities that help write police reports using video and audio transcription from body-worn cameras.
Legal and evidentiary concerns
Police reports often play a key role in investigations and trials, and some experts have warned that errors introduced by AI systems can have serious legal consequences if undetected.
Errors introduced by AI systems, such as inaccuracies, omissions, or misunderstandings of context or language, can impact how investigators, prosecutors, and judges understand evidence.
Experts and industry leaders generally point to several safeguards. These include clear disclosure when AI is used in reports, mandatory human verification of all AI-generated text, regular independent audits of tools, and training for law enforcement and legal stakeholders on how the system works and how output can be traced to raw audio, video, and other source evidence.
These recommendations are in line with a framework released earlier this year by the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank, that calls for rigorous independent verification of AI systems, legally enforceable procurement standards, ongoing performance monitoring, and clear human oversight to ensure operators can override the output generated by AI.
“The pace of change is really dramatic, and there’s a lot of energy and confusion and attention to these issues,” said Jesse Rothman, director of the Criminal Justice Council’s Task Force on Artificial Intelligence. “The opportunities and risks are very serious.”
Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at awatford@stateline.org.
