AI Monitors Prison Calls to Predict Planned Crimes
▼ Summary
– The FCC’s 2024 reform initially forbade telecom companies from passing the costs of call recording and surveillance on to incarcerated people, requiring prisons and jails to pay for most security costs.
– In response to the reform, law enforcement groups complained about affordability and some facilities threatened to cut off phone access, while Securus lobbied the FCC for a rule change.
– The FCC, under Chairman Brendan Carr, postponed the 2024 reforms and signaled support for allowing telecoms to use inmate fees to fund AI surveillance tools for public safety.
– In October, the FCC voted to pass new rules allowing companies like Securus to pass security costs, including for AI monitoring tools, on to inmates and their families.
– FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez dissented, arguing that law enforcement, not inmates’ families, should pay for these security costs.
The use of artificial intelligence to analyze prison phone calls represents a significant shift in correctional monitoring, raising profound questions about privacy, predictive policing, and who ultimately pays for surveillance technology. A new AI system designed to flag conversations that might indicate plans for criminal activity is at the center of a regulatory debate, one that recently tilted in favor of funding such tools through fees charged to inmates and their families.
A company spokesperson stated the tool’s purpose is to enhance monitoring efficiency during staff shortages, emphasizing it is “not to surveil individuals without cause.” This technological advancement arrives alongside a major policy reversal. In 2024, the Federal Communications Commission enacted reforms that prohibited telecom companies from billing inmates for the costs associated with recording and monitoring their calls. These rules, celebrated by prisoner advocacy groups, shifted the financial responsibility for most security measures to the prisons and jails themselves.
The reaction from many law enforcement agencies was immediate and critical. Sheriff associations and attorneys general from over a dozen states filed lawsuits, arguing the new financial burden was unsustainable. Some facilities even threatened to eliminate inmate phone access altogether. During this period, the company Securus was developing its AI monitoring tool and actively lobbied the FCC for a change, contending the 2024 reforms were too restrictive.
The regulatory landscape shifted dramatically this year. In June, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr announced a postponement of the reform deadlines and suggested the agency wanted to help telecoms fund AI surveillance using inmate fees. Carr argued that revising the rules would “lead to broader adoption of beneficial public safety tools that include advanced AI and machine learning.”
By late October, the FCC took definitive action, voting to implement new, higher rate caps and explicitly allowing companies to pass security costs, including expenses for recording storage, transcription, and AI analysis, back to the people using the prison phone system. A Securus spokesperson explained the company seeks to balance affordability with funding what it calls essential security tools, which are deemed fundamental for facility safety and public protection.
This decision did not pass unanimously. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez voiced strong dissent, arguing that “law enforcement should foot the bill for unrelated security and safety costs, not the families of incarcerated people.” The new rules are not yet final, as the FCC will open a public comment period before they are fully implemented. This ongoing debate underscores the tension between advancing security technology and ensuring equitable policies for incarcerated populations and their support networks.
(Source: Technology Review)
