Useful Or Dehumanising? US Police Use Robot Dogs To Test Homeless For COVID-19

The police department in the US state of Hawaii¡¯s Honolulu has now started the use of the popular robotic dog ¡®Spot¡¯ to scan the homeless and make sure they don¡¯t have a fever, in an effort to curb COVID-19 cases in the state.

AP

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Reported first by AP, Honolulu P.D. who are experimenting with the four-legged creature say that it's just an ordinary tool much like drones and wheeled robots to help keep emergency responders out of harm's way.

However, privacy advocates warn that this is one of the many ways the police are getting these surveillance bots without proper safeguards against their aggressive, invasive and even dehumanising nature.

In Honolulu, this is being used at a government-run tent city near the airport that has a massive population of homeless people. While the authorities with Honolulu PD, in a demo earlier this year revealed how capable Spot was in detecting COVID-19 cases and it had protected officers, shelter staff and residents by scanning body temperatures between mealtimes. The robot also helped in interviewing individuals who tested positive.

Acting Lt. Joseph O¡¯Neal said in a statement, ¡°We have not had a single person out there that said, ¡®That¡¯s scary, that¡¯s worrisome'. We don¡¯t just walk around and arbitrarily scan people.¡±

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Jong Wook Kim, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii said in a conversation with AP, ¡°Because these people are houseless it¡¯s considered OK to do that. At some point, it will come out again for some different use after the pandemic is over.¡±

AP

The robot was recently in the news when the New York Police Department started using a blue-trim version of Spot last year, naming it ¡®DigiDog¡¯ where people saw the four-legged robot walk casually through New York streets and soon became a sensation resulting in a public outcry due to the already over-policing issues in public housing areas in the city.

Also Read: Viral Video Shows Robot Dog Helping New York Police In City Patrol

This blew up on social media forcing the department to shut down Digidog and return it back to Boston Dynamics.

¡°One of the big challenges is accurately describing the state of the technology to people who have never had personal experience with it,¡± Michael Perry, vice president of business development at Boston Dynamics, said in an interview with AP. ¡°Most people are applying notions from science fiction to what the robot¡¯s doing.¡±

Do you think Spot is helpful or creepy, and using him to test the homeless people for Covid-19 extremely dehumanising? Tell us in the comments below, and keep visiting Indiatimes.com for technology news and trends from India and around the world.