AI Surveillance Startup Gabriel Faces Scrutiny Over Privacy and Equity Concerns

A Brazilian startup named Gabriel is drawing criticism for its AI-powered surveillance system, which allows residents to pay for cameras outside their homes while furnishing footage to law enforcement at no cost. Critics argue that this model could foster a surveillance state and exacerbate existing inequalities in public security.

Gabriel's system involves residents paying a fee to install cameras, with the collected footage then being provided to police. The company's founder, Coser, stated that the use of facial recognition technology by authorities is outside of Gabriel's purview. "Our part is over," Coser said, indicating that the company is not responsible for how authorities utilize the data they receive.

Pablo Nunes, director of the Center for Studies on Public Safety and Citizenship, a non-governmental organization based in Rio de Janeiro, suggests that Gabriel's approach of passing footage to police rather than scanning it itself is a method to avoid accountability for misidentifications. Nunes noted that in 2019, approximately 90% of individuals arrested based on facial recognition in Brazil were Black. A forthcoming 2025 report, co-authored by Nunes and Brazil's federal public defender's office, is expected to detail the widespread and largely unregulated use of facial recognition technology across Brazil, with no established mechanism for reporting errors.

Nunes also pointed out potential equity issues related to the privatization of public security. He stated that Gabriel's cameras are predominantly installed in more affluent neighborhoods. This, according to Nunes, could result in a disproportionate allocation of police attention to a smaller, paying segment of the population, effectively allowing them to bypass others in the queue for law enforcement services. Despite these concerns, homicide and robbery rates have seen significant declines in major Brazilian cities since 2017, a trend that predates the widespread adoption of Gabriel's technology. Nunes himself recently experienced the challenges of opposing the technology, admitting he lost a bid to prevent a Gabriel camera from being installed on his own building despite raising objections with neighbors.