The technology’s microphones can help warn of shootings in a fraction of the time of 911 calls – but are they also picking up private conversations?

“How many of us have actually heard the sound of a gunshot? It’s much more difficult to identify than you may think.”

Damaune Journey, vice-president of security solutions at SST Inc, is explaining the benefits of his company’s product, ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection system that’s the latest in security technology.

Here’s how it works: in a given area, ShotSpotter sets up multiple sound-monitoring microphones, which detect gunfire based on the company’s algorithm. If ShotSpotter picks up anything, the audio recording is sent to a 24-hour monitoring center in Newark, California, where it’s reviewed by experts, many with previous law enforcement training. The results are then transmitted to local police officers.

According to ShotSpotter, all this takes approximately 30 seconds – significantly faster than the typical 3-5 minutes for the first person to call 911 once a shot is fired.

The system has been installed for about a decade in high-crime urban areas and near military bases, in the US and overseas. ShotSpotter covers more than 300 square miles in at least 90 cities across the United States.



A diagram explains how ShotSpotter technology works. Photograph: Shotspotter

Now, the private gunshot detection company is branching out towards a new market of security tech consumers: college campuses.

In 2014 ShotSpotter launched its SecureCampus technology, offering the sound-monitoring hookup to campuses across the country. In September of that year, the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) became the first school in the nation to install ShotSpotter, and on 17 June, Newark Memorial high school’s principal, Phil Morales, a former police officer, announced it had become the first high school to plant the technology throughout its campus. So far only these two schools have bought ShotSpotter, but it probably won’t stay that way for long.

“We’ve had a variety of colleges interested in the project, from all over the country – east and west, large and small,” Journey said. “The interest seems to be growing.”

Journey would not reveal how many schools are considering adopting ShotSpotter, but he did say: “We haven’t deployed it in any elementary schools at this point in time, but we certainly know that the technology is useful in all sorts of settings.”

The company is hoping there will soon be a groundswell in the use of ShotSpotter in schools. A paragraph from the SecureCampus page of ShotSpotter’s website reads: “In the next few decades, this indoor/outdoor safety technology will be as commonplace as fire alarms and sprinkler systems are today.”

But sprinkler systems don’t come with built-in invasion-of-privacy implications, which some experts and politicians worry about with ShotSpotter.

ShotSpotter claims it has no interest in recording private conversations on its system, which continually erases the data it picks up every one to two days. According to ShotSpotter’s privacy policy: “The entire system is intentionally designed not to permit ‘live listening’ of any sort. Human voices do not trigger ShotSpotter sensors.”

According to the ACLU’s Jay Stanley, there’s no reason not to believe the corporation’s claims, but that doesn’t mean there’s no cause for concern.

A ShotSpotter employee at the incident review center in California. Photograph: ShotSpotter

“How can we be sure that the technology is in fact confined to listening for gunshots? How can we ensure that it won’t expand over time to more and more uses?” Stanley said. “I would want some sort of independent auditing of the technology and how it works to be done, ideally that’s what we would have.”

In March, New York City police commissioner Bill Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city would begin installing a ShotSpotter pilot program in 10 Brooklyn precincts and seven in the Bronx. The city’s public advocate, Letitia James, has introduced a bill to the city council that would require quarterly reports on any data collected by ShotSpotter as well as any gunshot reports.

How can we be sure that the technology is in fact confined to listening for gunshots?

Many have questioned whether ShotSpotter could constitute a fourth amendment violation – warrantless search and seizure of public sounds.

A New York Times article from 2012 that compared the gunshot detection device to body cameras, GPS trackers and license plate scanners reported on a murder case in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where ShotSpotter recorded a conversation that took place just before the shooting. A debate brewed over whether the audio would be admissible in court.

Frank Camera, the defense lawyer on the case, told the New York Times that the technology is “opening a whole can of worms”.

“If the police are utilizing these conversations, then the real issue is, where does it stop?”

In another case, five years earlier, 14-year-old DeOnte Rawlings was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer in Washington DC who claimed he suspected Rawlings of stealing a minibike. ShotSpotter footage was used to show that the first shot came from a firearm nearby where DeOnte fell, not from the officer in question, James Haskel. That data was cited in the investigation that sided with Haskel a year later and cleared him of any criminal wrongdoing.

This was the third time Haskel had shot someone while off-duty and subsequently been cleared of all charges. It was the first time his actions had proved fatal.

In 2011, after more details of the case came to light, Rawlings’ family settled a $100m civil lawsuit against the city and the two officers involved in the shooting for an undisclosed amount.

At SCAD, the first school in the country to install ShotSpotter, the system has yet to generate much conflict.

Erin Branch, who graduated from SCAD in May, said she had no idea the technology had been installed, but that it sounded like a great idea. “I think this ShotSpotter is a wonderful tool to help prevent gun violence,” she told me. “I like the idea of the police knowing right away when a gun is fired.”

The Savannah College of Art and Design campus, in Savannah, Georgia. Photograph: Savannah College of Art and Design

SCAD was in talks with ShotSpotter to install gun detection technology for a few years, but it wasn’t until last year that the school took the plunge. It’s not, however, the only safety measure SCAD has purchased in recent years.

“ShotSpotter was just another prong in that implementation in that use of technology to make the campus safer,” says John Buckovich, chief of the department of public safety at SCAD. About a year ago the campus started using LiveSafe, an app that allows students to send footage and texts to campus police if they see something suspicious.

Over the past couple of years, SCAD has also expanded its camera system to building exteriors, the main entryways of academic buildings, residence halls and parking lots. It also built an operating center to monitor those cameras 24/7.

If the police are utilizing these conversations, then the real issue is, where does it stop?

According to SST’s corporate overview, this is how ShotSpotter is meant to be used – as part of a comprehensive surveillance network: “ShotSpotter solutions integrate with other systems in your environment to permit the sharing of data across systems, roles and other agencies. ShotSpotter can connect to CCTV or video management systems to direct cameras to other surveillance assets towards incidents.”

Buckowitch described SCAD’s use to technology to supplement their safety and security programs over the past few years as “aggressive” and “progressive”.

According to Buckovitch, SCAD is not a “traditional campus”, in that its buildings sprawl across two square miles of Savannah. ShotSpotter has been installed throughout Savannah’s historic district and downtown area, which comprise in part non-university-affiliated residents and businesses.

Buckovitch told me: “Anywhere in that two square miles ... if a shot is fired, even if it’s not near SCAD’s campus – it could be two, three, four blocks away – the police department is still getting notification of the shot getting fired.”

SST has done little to address the implications of a private entity like SCAD purchasing security equipment that could potentially monitor people outside of or in between its physical domains. According to Journey, the company’s policy is to let each school decide for itself whether to publicize the installation of ShotSpotter.



Another potential issue for campuses lies in a cost-reward analysis. As Stanley pointed out: “Every dollar spent on [ShotSpotter] is a dollar taken away from much-needed children’s education. I have three children and if this was being put in their school, I would question whether this was a good use of limited resources.”

But it’s unclear how much ShotSpotter will cost schools. A recent CBS report put the price tag at $15,000 installation fees and annual monitoring costs, but Journey said the cost will vary, adding: “It will only be a fraction of the cost of the fire alarm system, which every school has.”

The price must of course be weighed with the reality of gun violence in America. Though campuses are among the safest places in the country, from 2000 to 2013 there have still been a reported 27 school shootings, resulting in 57 deaths, according to FBI data.

Buckowitch maintains that gun violence in the Savannah area did not factor into his decision to install ShotSpotter. “The decision to go toward ShotSpotter wasn’t based on one particular incident, it wasn’t based on crime in Savannah – it was completely based on how to use technology to make our campus safer.”

Given SecureCampus’s planned expansion, the question of whether it’s worthwhile for these gunshot detection devices and their attendant costs to become as commonplace as fire alarms will only grow in urgency. “We don’t want children feeling that there’s microphones surrounding them,” says Stanley. “We don’t want our children growing up in an atmosphere of pervasive surveillance.”