Digidog, a Robotic Dog Used by the Police, Stirs Privacy Concerns

Education Education Headlines News

NEW YORK — Two men were being held hostage in a Bronx apartment. They had been threatened at gunpoint, tied up and tortured for hours by two other men who pretended to be plumbers to get inside, police said. One of the victims managed to escape and called the police, who showed up early Tuesday morning at the apartment on East 227th Street, unsure if the armed men were still inside. The police decided it was time to deploy Digidog, a 70-pound robotic dog with a loping gait, cameras and lights affixed to its frame, and a two-way communication system that allows the officer maneuvering it remotely to see and hear what is happening. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Police said the robot can see in the dark and assess how safe it is for officers to enter an apartment or building where there may be a threat. In the case of the Bronx home invasion, police said Digidog helped the officers determine that there was no one inside. Police said they were still searching for the two men, who stole a cellphone and $2,000 in cash and used a hot iron to burn one of the victims. “The NYPD has been using robots since the 1970s to save lives in hostage situations & hazmat incidents,” the department said on Twitter. “This model of robot is being tested to evaluate its capabilities against other models in use by our emergency service unit and bomb squad.” But the robot has skeptics. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, described Digidog on Twitter as a “robotic surveillance ground” drone. “Please ask yourself: When was the last time you saw next-generation, world-class technology for education, health care, housing, etc. consistently prioritized for underserved communities like this?” she said on Twitter, linking to a New York Post story about Digidog. The City Council passed the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act last June amid efforts to overhaul the police force, many of them triggered by Black Lives Matter demonstrations. The act requires