Domain Awareness System

rdf:langString Domain Awareness System

rdf:langString The Domain Awareness System is the largest digital surveillance system in the world as part of the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative in partnership between the New York Police Department and Microsoft to monitor New York City. It allows the NYPD to track surveillance targets and gain detailed information about them, and is overseen by the counterterrorism bureau. The system is connected to 18,000 CCTV cameras video cameras around New York City. It also has access to data from at least 2 billion license plate readings, 100 million summonses, 54 million 911 calls, 15 million complaints, 12 million detective reports, 11 million arrests, and 2 million warrants. The data from the CCTV cameras is kept for 30 days, the LPR readings for at least 5 years. Text records are searchable. The initial cost of development was funded by $350 million in Federal Homeland Security grants. The software component of the system is also licensed out to other cities with New York City getting 30% of the profits. So far the system has been licensed by the Washington DC Metro Police, the Brazilian National Police, and the Singapore Police Force. This system is highlighted in a May 2013 episode of PBS' Nova on tracking the Boston Marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.