As Chicago’s ShotSpotter microphones shut down following years of controversy about the gunshot detection device, the Chicago Transit Authority is trying out a new tool designed to detect the presence of firearms — this time, through video surveillance.
Through a $200,000 pilot, CTA is adding ZeroEyes, a software that uses artificial intelligence and human analysis to scan surveillance footage and alert police to the presence of guns, to its security measures. Though the Philadelphia-based company tried and failed to launch in its hometown, the CTA is still eager to test out the technology, saying its cameras are better equipped to handle it.
But in the aftermath of ShotSpotter, the ZeroEyes CTA pilot is raising similar concerns about the effectiveness and ethics of using surveillance to try to stem shootings.
“We have a record now of more than two decades where we have been promised that these types of technologies will make us more safe,” said ACLU Illinois spokesperson Ed Yohnka. “Chicago is one of the most surveilled cities in the world, and we’re still plagued by a high level of gun violence.”
ZeroEyes proponents say it will improve public safety by helping police respond faster to potential gun threats. But there have been at least a few instances in and out of Chicago when ZeroEyes flagged objects that weren’t firearms, raising questions about causing unnecessary police interactions.
Co-founder Sam Alaimo said that ZeroEyes does everything it can to prevent false alarms. The company did not respond to questions about its success rate or how many guns the team has intercepted. As to how Chicago Police decide to respond to their alerts, Alaimo said that’s ultimately “not our business.”
“We’re not handling police response,” Alaimo said. “We just give them the evidence.”
‘Just an added layer of security’
Violent crime has been growing on Chicago’s public transportation system since 2002, peaking in 2021 at 4.2 violent crimes per 1 million rides, according to an analysis of police and CTA data by WBEZ.
The CTA is running ZeroEyes on “roughly 250” of its more than 33,000 surveillance cameras, CTA spokesperson Manny Gonzales wrote in an email to The Trace. CTA officials didn’t say which train platforms have ZeroEyes devices, citing security concerns, but said they used criteria like ridership trends and crime data to select them. When an object believed to be a gun is spotted on a platform, ZeroEyes alerts the CTA, the Office of Emergency Management and Communication, and police. The CTA pilot comes in addition to an existing ZeroEyes contract at Navy Pier.
“This ZeroEyes pilot is just an added layer of security,” Gonzales said.
While several recent shootings on CTA property, including a quadruple homicide on the Blue Line, have sparked calls for more security, Lance Williams, a professor of Urban Community Studies at Northeastern Illinois University, sees the ZeroEyes launch more as a public relations strategy than a public safety investment. Williams has spent more than two decades studying gun violence. He said the ZeroEyes partnership is the city’s latest effort to appear to be tackling gun violence without addressing its root causes.
“To even place so much emphasis and resources into surveillance – and even law enforcement to a large degree – is almost wasted money,” Williams said, because these tools work “always after the fact.”
What Is ZeroEyes?
ZeroEyes was founded in 2018 in the Philadelphia suburbs by a group of former Navy Seals and Special Operations veterans concerned about mass shootings. The company connects AI-powered software to cameras in places like schools, businesses, and public transit. As previously reported by The Trace, ZeroEyes was set to launch on Philadelphia’s public transit system in 2023, but that partnership was quietly shuttered when the software was found to be incompatible with the system’s cameras.
The company markets itself as a “proactive tool” that keeps people safe by alerting police or other emergency responders within three to five seconds after a gun is spotted. Human analysts help confirm that the objects the computer catches are, indeed, firearms.
During a recent Zoom conversation, Alaimo played footage of ZeroEyes in action. One clip showed a man pointing a gun on a train platform. Police arrived with their weapons drawn and arrested him. Another showed several young people carrying what Alaimo said were several AK-47s at the entrance of a school.
‘Shrouded in Secrecy’
A recent report from Block Club Chicago said the pilot was “shrouded in secrecy.” BlockClub noted that CTA did not hold a competitive bidding process for it, and Chicagoans never had the opportunity to weigh in.
Alaimo said the United Safety and Survivability Corporation, a company that designs and manufactures products for public transit systems, connected ZeroEyes to CTA. According to Gonzales, the agency became aware of ZeroEyes after other transit agencies piloted the program.
“Most clients don’t want us talking about their relationship with us,” Alaimo said. “They don’t want people to think there’s a gun problem.”
Yohnka said CTA’s decision to launch ZeroEyes without community feedback fits into a larger pattern where city leaders “just announce” surveillance technology without inviting residents to voice their opinions or concerns.
The decision to partner with ZeroEyes reflects the disconnect between CTA leadership and commuters, said Jose Manuel Almanza, director of advocacy and movement building for Equiticity, a racial equity nonprofit focused on transportation issues. Almanza, who was involved in the #StopShotSpotter campaign, said that for the riders Equiticity works with, inconsistent service, poorly lit stops, and mental health crises are more pressing safety issues.
“People are tired of the same old solutions when it comes to public safety,” Almanza said. “If there was more community involvement in these kinds of decisions, CTA leaders would know this.”
Flagging false positives
ZeroEyes has flagged objects that aren’t guns to law enforcement. In Texas, both the AI and human analysts mistook a shadow for a firearm, causing a school to lock down. Earlier this year, Navy Pier security dispatched an armed response after the AI and analysts misidentified a toy gun to be used in a play.
Critics, Alaimo said, focus on the Texas incident but not the “hundreds of actual detections” from ZeroEyes. “We dispatched that under full awareness that it looked exactly like a gun to err on the side of safety,” he said, because if it had been a gun, “the damage would have been far more catastrophic.”
Alaimo’s comments echo a common refrain of ShotSpotter supporters: if the technology saves one life then it’s worth the investment.
False positives, though, can be dangerous, Yohnka said, especially as some seek to minimize unnecessary interactions between police and residents.
But Williams’s concerns run deeper. These companies get “multimillion dollar contracts to profit off Black and brown misery and trauma,” he said. “The city has created the stress and then they allow white-owned companies to profit from the stress they created. Why not put those resources in the hands of the people who are traumatized?”
