“Guardrails” Won’t Protect Nashville Residents From AI-Enabled Camera Networks
Nashville’s Metropolitan Council is one vote away from passing an ordinance that’s being branded as “guardrails” against the privacy problems that come with giving the police a connected camera system like Axon’s Fusus. But Nashville locals are right to be skeptical of just how much protection from mass surveillance products they can expect.
"I am against these guardrails," council member Ginny Welsch told the Tennessean recently. "I think they're kind of a farce. I don't think there can be any guardrail when we are giving up our privacy and putting in a surveillance system."
Likewise, Electronic Frontier Alliance member Lucy Parsons Labs has inveighed against Fusus and the supposed guardrails as a fix to legislators’ and residents’ concerns in a letter to the Metropolitan Council.
While the ordinance doesn’t name the company specifically, it was introduced in response to privacy concerns over the city’s possible contract for Fusus, an Axon system that facilitates access to live camera footage for police and helps funnel such feeds into real-time crime centers. In particular, local opponents are concerned about data-sharing—a critical part of Fusus—that could impede the city’s ability to uphold its values against the criminalization of some residents, like undocumented immigrants and people seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care.
This technology product, which was acquired by the police surveillance giant Axon in 2024, facilitates two major functions for police:
- With the click of a button—or the tap of an icon on a map—officers can get access to live camera footage from public and private cameras, including the police’s Axon body-worn cameras, that have been integrated into the Fusus network.
- Data feeds from a variety of surveillance tools—like body-worn cameras, drones, gunshot detection, and the connected camera network—can be aggregated into a system that makes those streams quickly accessible and susceptible to further analysis by features marketed as “artificial intelligence.”
From 2022 through 2023, Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) had, unbeknownst to the public, already been using Fusus. When the contract came back under consideration, a public outcry and unanswered questions about the system led to its suspension, and the issue was deferred multiple times before the contract renewal was voted down late last year. Nashville council members determined that the Fusus system posed too great a threat to vulnerable groups that the council has sought to protect with city policies and resolutions, including pregnant residents, immigrants, and residents seeking gender-affirming care, among others. The state has criminalized some of the populations that the city of Nashville has passed ordinances to protect.
Unfortunately, the fight against the sprawling surveillance of Fusus continues. The city council is now making its final consideration of the aforementionedan ordinance that some of its members say will protect city residents in the event that the mayor and other Fusus fans are able to get a contract signed after all.
These so-called guardrails include:
- restricting the MNPD from accessing private cameras or installing public safety cameras in locations “where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy”;
- prohibiting using face recognition to identify individuals in the connected camera system’s footage;
- policies addressing authorized access to and use of the connected camera system, including how officers will be trained, and how they will be disciplined for any violations of the policy;
- quarterly audits of access to the connected camera system;
- mandatory inclusion of a clause in procurement contracts allowing for immediate termination should violations of the ordinance be identified;
- mandatory reporting to the mayor and the council about any violations of the ordinance, the policies, or other abuse of access to the camera network within seven days of the discovery.
Here’s the thing: even if these limited “guardrails” are in place, the only true protection from the improper use of the AI-enabled Fusus system is to not use it at all.
We’ve seen that when law enforcement has access to cameras, they will use them, even if there are clear regulations prohibiting those uses:
- During protests against police brutality in San Francisco, police used live access to cameras to illegally spy on protestors.
- Black residents of a subsidized housing development became the primary surveillance targets for police officers with Fusus access in Toledo, Ohio.
- Officers in Massachusetts have been able to use cameras with live access to conduct months-long, ongoing warrantless surveillance.
Firms such as Fusus and its parent company Axon are pushing AI-driven features, and databases with interjurisdictional access. Surveillance technology is bending toward a future where all of our data are being captured, including our movements by street cameras (like those that would be added to Fusus), our driving patterns by ALPR, our living habits by apps, and our actions online by web trackers, and then being combined, sold, and shared.
When Nashville first started its relationship with Fusus in 2022, the company featured only a few products, primarily focused on standardizing video feeds from different camera providers.
Now, Fusus is aggressively leaning into artificial intelligence, claiming that its “AI on the Edge” feature is built into the initial capture phase and processes as soon as video is taken. Even if the city bans use of face recognition for the connected camera system, the Fusus system boasts that it can detect humans, objects, and combine other characteristics to identify individuals, detect movements, and set notifications based on certain characteristics and behaviors. Marketing material claims that the system comes “pre-loaded with dozens of search and analysis variables and profiles that are ready for action,” including a "robust & growing AI library.” It’s unclear how these AI recognition options are generated or how they are vetted, if at all, or whether they can even be removed as would be required by the ordinance.
The proposed “guardrails” in Nashville are insufficient to address danger posed by mass surveillance systems, and the city of Nashville shouldn’t think they’ve protected their residents, tourists, and other visitors by passing them. Nashville residents and other advocacy groups have already raised concerns.
The only true way to protect Nashville’s residents against dragnet surveillance and overcriminalization is to block access to these invasive technologies altogether. Though this ordinance has passed its second reading, Nashville should not adopt Fusus or any other connected camera system, regardless of whether the ordinance is ultimately adopted. If Councilors care about protecting their constituents, they should hold the line against Fusus.