The US Division of Homeland Safety is in search of to develop a brand new cellular surveillance platform that fuses synthetic intelligence, radar, high-powered cameras, and wi-fi networking right into a single system, in response to federal contracting information reviewed by WIRED. The know-how would mount on 4×4 automobiles able to reaching distant areas and reworking into rolling, autonomous remark towers, extending the attain of border surveillance far past its present mounted websites.
The proposed system surfaced Friday after US Customs and Border Safety quietly printed a pre-solicitation discover for what it’s calling a Modular Cell Surveillance System, or M2S2. The itemizing contains draft technical paperwork, knowledge necessities, and design targets.
DHS didn’t reply to a request for remark.
If M2S2 performs as described, border patrol brokers might park their automobiles, elevate a telescoping mast, and inside minutes begin detecting movement a number of miles away. The system would rely closely on so-called laptop imaginative and prescient, a type of “synthetic intelligence” that enables machines to interpret visible knowledge body by body and detect shapes, warmth signatures, and motion patterns. Such algorithms—beforehand developed for use in struggle drones—are educated on 1000’s if not hundreds of thousands of pictures to differentiate between individuals, animals, and automobiles.
The event of M2S2 comes amid the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on undocumented immigrants throughout the US. As a part of this push, which has sparked widespread protests and condemnation for the brutal techniques utilized by immigration authorities, Congress boosted DHS’s discretionary funds authority to roughly $65 billion. The GOP’s “One Massive Lovely Invoice” allocates over $160 billion for immigration enforcement and border measures—most of it directed to DHS—with the funds scheduled to be distributed over a number of years. The administration has sought to extend DHS funding by roughly 65 p.c, proposing the biggest enlargement within the company’s historical past to fund new border enforcement, detention capability, and immigration surveillance initiatives.
Based on paperwork reviewed by WIRED, areas of objects focused by the system could be pinpointed on digital maps inside 250 ft of their true location (with a stretch aim of round 50 ft) and transmit that knowledge throughout an app known as TAK—a government-built tactical mapping platform developed by the US Protection Division to assist troops coordinate actions and keep away from pleasant hearth.
DHS envisions two modes of operation: one with an agent on website and one other the place the vans sit largely unattended. Within the latter case, the car’s onboard AI would conduct the surveillance and ship distant operators alerts when it detects exercise. Missions are to be logged begin to end, with video, maps, and sensor knowledge retained for at least 15 days, locked in opposition to deletion “beneath any circumstances.”