A US tech firm has been privately lobbying UK councils and police forces to scale up their surveillance using an AI-powered platform used against Black Lives Matter protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, openDemocracy can reveal.
At least one London council is already trialling the software as a result of approaches by the company, Fusus, which claims to be “the most widely used and trusted real-time crime center platform in US public safety”.
Fusus has been attempting to expand into the UK, opening an office in London’s Canary Wharf in March this year and hiring former officers from the Met to approach councils and police forces. It has approached Tower Hamlets and Hackney borough councils and the Met, City of London and Merseyside police forces to sell products that integrate CCTV and surveillance networks, according to Freedom of Information requests.
