Today, Axon announced eight new product features developed in direct support of its goal of helping public safety agencies address systemic inequity, racism, and injustice.
The new features are part of the company's Sprint for Justice initiative, which is driven by Axon employees' passion to do even more in service of Axon's mission to protect life. More than 200 engineers from across nearly every team in the company came together to build the new features, which are designed to facilitate agencies in increasing transparency, capturing truth, and supporting officer development.
Sprint for Justice features include:
* Priority-Ranked Video Audit—Automatically ranks videos for supervisor review based on keywords that are transcribed from the audio of body camera videos such as offensive or agency-selected keywords as well as on events such as unholstering a firearm or arming a TASER device.
* Use of Force Dashboard—Allows agencies to access interactive reports on use-of-force incidents in real time within Axon Standards to drive compliance and empower better training.
* VR Peer Intervention Training—Helps prepare officers with VR training to intervene and handle high-stakes, challenging situations with colleagues.
* Hypermedia Markers—Automatically flags key events captured on body camera for review in Axon Evidence such as when a TASER device was armed or when a firearm was removed from its holster.
* Replay Coaching—Enables officers to request feedback on any incident captured on body camera from agency-designated coaches to help promote a culture of ongoing learning and development.
* LED Auto Brightness—Auto-adjusts the body camera's LED brightness using ambient light conditions to help keep officers safe at night and still provide transparency by showing when an officer is recording.
* Publish to Social Media—Allows police agencies to easily publish approved body camera videos to their social media pages and channels for increased speed and transparency.
* Social Media and Webpage Evidence—Allows police and communities to submit digital evidence captured from webpages, including social media, to help get to the truth faster and save valuable time in an investigation.
"Everything we build is already focused on protecting life and using technology as a force for good, but our product teams were particularly inspired by the events of this summer to do more and do it faster," says Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President of Software Jeff Kunins. "We're incredibly proud of how this engineering experiment came together, and we're excited about these first eight new features to directly support our new strategic goal centering racial equity, diversity, and inclusion. We're here to support and put more tools in the hands of our public safety customers who are working hard amid incredible challenges—and we're committed to helping everyone continue to move forward and achieve better outcomes for communities."
"At Axon, our mission has always been to protect life and we are emboldened by the opportunity to continue to re-imagine public safety and support our customers and communities," says Axon CEO and founder Rick Smith. "Technology is not a panacea but it can have an outsized impact on creating a world where everyone feels safe. We have the privilege to imagine how the world can and should be different and we have the capability to create and drive that change."
"We're looking forward to testing the new Priority-Ranked Video Audit feature to help give our supervisors the ability to find the needles in the haystack of body-worn camera footage," said Cherry Hill, NJ, Chief of Police William Monaghan. "Not only will it save us time, but by surfacing issues that need attention, it will support our ability to uphold the individual rights and dignity for all people in our community."
As part of Sprint for Justice, Axon leveraged its ethics framework established by the Axon AI and Policing Technology Ethics Board to ensure the new products were developed responsibly. In addition to working with its AI Ethics Board, Axon has committed to listening to community members by launching a forthcoming Community Coalition. With this group, Axon will conduct voice of customer sessions with community members to ensure that products reflect the needs of the public.
"Axon has a responsibility to support racial justice efforts, and we are proud to help build a bridge between communities and police," said Axon VP of Community Impact Regina Holloway. "We are committed to listening to the individuals who are impacted by our products, and are looking forward to announcing the members of our coalition."
