By Erica C. Barnett
A Seattle Police Department officer, Adam Sun, is on administrative leave after using a pair of AI smart glasses to record a promotional video for a Chinese company, Rokid Global. The film, taken from Sun’s POV while wearing the glasses, showed scenes inside of a police precinct, at a police investigation, in and around the department’s weapons lockers, and inside Sun’s police car while he’s driving, among other locations. The footage is frenetic and Sun hypes the glasses throughout. At one point, Sun daps a man holding a tiny goat.
Rokid posted the video next to other promotional videos on its Facebook page and other social media sites earlier this month. Since then, the post has been removed, and I was unable to locate another version of it online; my description is based on my own recollection from multiple viewings. On September 10, someone filed a complaint against Sun with the city’s Office of Police Accountability and SPD put him on administrative leave—a reaction that shows SPD considers the incident serious.
Security experts have identified specific concerns about Chinese smart glasses (as well as those produced in the US by companies like Meta.) If a police officer in the US received money to promote a Chinese company, that could raise additional concerns. China, politically a US adversary, heavily surveils its citizens in what has been described as a surveillance and digital “police state.”
Rokid has hyped the glasses’ thermal facial recognition function as an important tool for police, allowing cops to identify offenders almost instantly. State law currently prohibits this use of facial recognition, but it’s an integral element of how police use the glasses in China, and a big selling point for Rokid, which previously pitched the glasses and their thermal capabilities to US companies and consumers as a COVID detection tool.
Several city and SPD policies appear to collectively prohibit police officers from using smart glasses to film nonpublic areas of police precincts and posting those videos online. These include a policy that says “Sworn employees may not wear any personally owned camera device.” restrictions on what officers can post on their own social media, and citywide prohibition on the use of unapproved AI.
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SPD’s policy manual prohibits the use of smart glasses to record “enforcement activity while on duty.” Nonetheless, department management felt the need to clarify. Within days, Assistant Chief Robert Brown sent out this edict to SPD staff:
Effective immediately, no Seattle Police Department personnel will utilize any type of personally owned recording devices (such as Meta glasses, Rokid glasses, digital recorders, etc.) to record video and/or audio while on duty. Posting of any video or audio clips obtained in this manner is prohibited. Any such posts that currently exist must be removed immediately.
Exceptions may be granted at the executive level (assistant chief or above) for a specific need to use such a device for a legitimate law enforcement purpose where the use of Body Worn Video would not suffice. This order does not alter the use of recording devices routinely used to conduct Investigations.
SPD did not answer our questions other than confirming that Sun is on administrative leave. They referred us to the Office of Police Accountability, which confirmed the existence of the complaint against Sun.
Definitely can’t defend this. Doesn’t really have anything to do with SPD specifically – nobody in government should be using Chinese spy technology or using their job for social media content.