Amazon’s Push for AI Surveillance in US Law Enforcement
Amazon is aggressively promoting Amazon Web Services (AWS) AI-driven surveillance tools to the U.S. law enforcement, tapping into an $11 billion police technology market, according to Forbes
For instance, AWS demonstrated a drone-based AI prototype to the San Diego Sheriff’s Department that detects weapons and objects in real time, relaying location data to police.
Although the Sheriff’s Department declined this prototype, AWS has still secured a foothold through partnerships.
The department chose Nomad Media as its service provider, which uses AWS’s cloud infrastructure, and object detection is supported by Rekognition —Amazon’s AI-powered image and video analysis tool.
Since mid-2023, AWS—led by a former Washington state police officer— has targeted new customers among U.S. law enforcement agencies like the San Diego Sheriff’s Department and King County, Washington.
Amazon’s strategy includes networking at conferences and events, such as the 2024 Justice and Public Safety Innovation Day in Irvine, California, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Denver in October 2025.
There, AWS promotes its own and partners’ solutions, including: vehicle tracking ($7.5 or €6.9 billion market, Flock Safety); database-connecting AI (Flock Safety); real-time crime center applications ($1.5 or €1.38 billion market, C3 AI, Revier Technologies); weapon detection ($80 or €73.6 million market, ZeroEyes); AI for police report generation (Abel AI, Mark43); systems for identifying and tracking individuals in videos or social media.
These tools operate on AWS’s cloud, and AWS assists partners in securing grants, such as Riverside County’s access to California’s $242 million (€222.64 million) retail theft fund.
Privacy advocates, including the ACLU, raise concerns about Amazon’s law enforcement ties. Rekognition has faced criticism for misidentifying non-white faces, and Amazon’s partnership with Axon enables police access to Ring camera footage.
A 2020 sales ban on Rekognition was lifted in 2024 for the U.S. Department of Justice, fueling further controversy over potential authoritarian overreach.
Despite these concerns, law enforcement agencies value AWS’s role in delivering innovative technologies.
While the San Diego Sheriff’s Department abandoned the drone prototype, AWS’s collaboration with C3 AI on Project Sherlock— an $11 million initiative to consolidate and analyze surveillance data across departments, involving the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office and 15 other agencies—has been praised, but also placed under scrutiny, as some San Mateo officials estimate that three years and $11 million later, they haven’t seen any benefits.
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