State is looking for access to surveillance feed from Waikiki company

The state sets up Waikiki Hotels and companies a plan that would give its private surveillance cameras to access to the film materials in real time to monitor crime and to ensure public security.

If enough companies buy into the agreement, the State Department of Law Enforcement will have a “significant investment” in readers, drones and additional cameras for areas that are currently not covered, told Director Mike Lambert to Honolulu Star-Advertister.

State officials are in the pitch phase of the project and hope that they will be actively involved in Memorandum of Contrension discussions in the coming weeks.

The security initiative known as SVT for security and partnerships with private companies is used in cities such as San Francisco and Miami and is examined in other tourist centers.

If the project is to be successful, it requires “interest and cooperation from the hotels and business in the region”, so that the real-time operations center can support access to existing public cameras to monitor activities that affect public security.

“The DLE intends to use Waikiki as a showpiece to promote the SVT concept, but we also intend to operate similar but scaled pilots in state buildings and infrastructures in agricultural areas, which are susceptible to criminal activities, public schools and a handful of Hawaiian, in which the community is able to be able to be States to state that are able.

The motivation to turn to technology initiatives is that the medical police authorities all over the country have difficulty recruiting, training and keeping civil servants.

Law enforcement agencies and local authorities have difficulty tackling the lack of civil servants. Every type of district service is difficult because there are more than 2,000 job offers in the city, including HPD.

The selfless, unpredictable and dangerous nature of traditional police work is not interested in young people as she once did.

“However, if you speak to the target group of 16 to 24 years, the mention of drone pilots, digital forensic analysts as well as opportunities to work with large providers that have Advanced AI (artificial intelligence) to support law enforcement, have made more interest in this field.” The hope would be that these people would fill the increasing emptiness in public security through technology platforms, while the A large scale of law enforcement community contributes to improving interest in traditional police work. “

The Waikiki Business Improvement District, which is referred to as WBID, works on this partnership with the state to bring “state-of-the-art technology to Waikiki” in order to improve public security, Trevor Abarzu, President and Managing Director of the organization, told The Star-Advertiser.

WBID would help to organize companies and commercial real estate in order to add the addition of other cameras to the public security network.

The city currently operates 31 cameras as part of an open video surveillance system in Waikiki.

From Friday, 26 of these cameras work around the clock and three work at night, but are offline during the day due to a problem with the battery system for which the city works.

Two other cameras are offline, one due to the disability of the wireless Backhaul signal due to surrounding trees and the other due to a power supply problem.

“Public security always has our top priority, and we are still confident of Waikiki's general security. While some of the surveillance cameras are currently offline, the Honolulu police department continues to keep a strong presence in the region, whereby the officials regularly over -patrol”.

The city plans an inspection in the coming weeks to find out what causes camera failures.

“As soon as we know more, we can give a better estimate about how long the repairs take and how much they will cost,” he said. “We know that this is frustrating and we appreciate the patience of the public very much when we work to solve it.”

The city also runs an open video surveillance system in Waikiki and examines the expansion in West Oahu.

Almost every company and every commercial property has publicly accessible cameras in its private network, which is facing the street, the sidewalk or other public property, explained the Abarzua from WBID.

The state is investing in a technological network in which these private cameras are included in the wider network of public cameras, which expands the number of cameras in Waikiki in which law enforcement authorities have access.

“While we are currently working in Waikiki only 26 (full-time), we can add dozens of additional cameras to the system in Waikiki to the system in the system,” said Abarzua.

Abarzua noticed a visit that he made at the Union Square Alliance in San Francisco, an organization that corresponds to WBID. Together with the San Francisco police department, he met with her leadership to find out how you introduced an identical partnership.

The Union Square was able to include 520 cameras in its system, so SFPD enables greater access to improve public security.

The lawyers argue that the need to prevent crime and improve public security in the heart of the Hawaii visitor industry should not excessively violate citizens.

Jongwook “Wookie” Kim, a lawyer and legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, told the star advertiser that the SVT program was “deeply alarming” from the perspective of bourgeois freedom.

“Inserting resources in readers, drones and cameras in license in the creation of a” large brother-like surveillance state “, while the state claims to concentrate on improving public security and Waikiki with advanced surveillance technology is not about security,” said Kim. Normalize everyday life.

KIM is of the opinion that every program that results from the partnership between the government and private companies needs strict protective measures to ensure that the data collected is not used for purposes that go beyond its specified intention.

“Without this protection, we risk opening the door to a widespread abuse of our personal data. Safety cannot come at the expense of our freedom,” he said.

Lambert admitted that the biggest setback will be the arguments for over -monitoring.

He thanked WBID for the support of the discussions about this initiative and hopes that the community will support the additional surveillance with the intention of “identifying and detaching crime”.

“From a personal perspective, I could be less interested in the law if I am added to the video when I go along the street if the intention is to prevent someone from robbery. The reality is as follows: If they do not violate the law, there is nothing to worry about,” said Lambert.