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CBP Is Testing Palmer Luckey's AI-Powered Surveillance Towers in the Great Lakes
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) plans to test an AI-powered surveillance tower made by Palmer Luckey’s company Anduril in the Great Lakes region near the Canadian border, according to internal CBP documents obtained by 404 Media.
The news shows CBP’s continued investment in AI surveillance technology, both with regards to digital surveillance, like the monitoring of social media of travelers, and that in the physical world, such is the case with this planned surveillance tower and others CBP already uses. It also marks the first time that CBP will be testing a maritime tower that is specifically engineered to weather cold climates, CBP told 404 Media.
“In support of the [CBP] mission of securing our nation’s borders, CBP has a need to procure autonomous border surveillance capabilities,” one of the documents reads. “This capability will serve to enrich relevant CBP information technology systems of record by providing new data streams that support improved situational awareness to ongoing tactical operations and strategic support without requiring additional staffing resources to support.”
Specifically, the document describes a plan to deploy an Autonomous Surveillance Tower (AST) “in the northern border Great Lakes environment for a technology demonstration.” The document does not provide a more granular location than that; the U.S.-Canada border cuts across four of the five Great Lakes (Lake Michigan is entirely in the U.S.) They are spread across Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as well as Ontario, Canada.
The news shows CBP’s continued investment in AI surveillance technology, both with regards to digital surveillance, like the monitoring of social media of travelers, and that in the physical world, such is the case with this planned surveillance tower and others CBP already uses. It also marks the first time that CBP will be testing a maritime tower that is specifically engineered to weather cold climates, CBP told 404 Media.
“In support of the [CBP] mission of securing our nation’s borders, CBP has a need to procure autonomous border surveillance capabilities,” one of the documents reads. “This capability will serve to enrich relevant CBP information technology systems of record by providing new data streams that support improved situational awareness to ongoing tactical operations and strategic support without requiring additional staffing resources to support.”
Specifically, the document describes a plan to deploy an Autonomous Surveillance Tower (AST) “in the northern border Great Lakes environment for a technology demonstration.” The document does not provide a more granular location than that; the U.S.-Canada border cuts across four of the five Great Lakes (Lake Michigan is entirely in the U.S.) They are spread across Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as well as Ontario, Canada.
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