During the Global Police Summit Secretly organized by Apple at its Cupertino headquarters, police officers from seven countries learned how to use a multitude of Apple products, such as the iPhone, Vision Pro and CarPlay, for surveillance and law enforcement purposes.
Article by Thomas Brewster for Forbes US – translated by Flora Lucas
Twice in the past five years, Apple has held closed-door conferences for police departments around the world, bringing officers together at the tech giant’s headquarters in Cupertino to discuss the best ways to use Apple’s products. the brand, learned Forbes.
Baptized Global Police Summitthe most recent event took place over three days in October 2023 at Apple Park. It was scheduled to precede the conference theInternational Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) in San Diego that year, according to emails obtained by Forbes via a public records request from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD).
A relationship between Apple and law enforcement not as conflictual as it seems
The idea that Apple has an adversarial relationship with law enforcement has been widely held since the company refused to help the FBI hack the iPhone of the shooter in the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attacks. However, Since then, the company has increased its collaboration with law enforcement through the conference and other meetings with agencies at the Cupertino headquarters and Elk Grove campus, as well as through a variety of projects previously unreported helping officers use iPhones, Macs, Apple Vision Pro and CarPlay, emails show. Most of these projects have not been publicly announced. Apple declined to comment.
“I have worked in law enforcement for almost 36 years. I have never been part of such a collaborative engagement. »
John McMahon, Los Angeles Police Deputy Chief and CIO
According to Matthew Guariglia, political analyst at theElectronic Frontier FoundationApple’s secrecy about its work with police indicates that the company is aware that providing technology for police surveillance operations is inherently at odds with its pro-life marketing. private. “These companies want to have it both ways”Matthew Guariglia told Forbes. “They want to have a reputation for protecting user data and they will do so at the expense of their relationships with law enforcement, while recognizing that creating technology for law enforcement is a multi-billion industry of dollars. » It is estimated that the United States spends $100 billion on policing each year.
Gary Oldham, who led Apple’s global strategy for public safety and emergency services until August, and who led the Global Police Summitdeclared to Forbes that the first event took place in 2019, with subsequent events canceled due to covid, until the 2023 conference. As many as 50 police service employees from seven countries, from Australia to Sweden, attended the events, where Apple held listening sessions with its engineers to discuss app development on the company’s various platforms, and police officers gave presentations on using Apple technology.
“This year’s themes will include: client agencies sharing their successes, innovations and lessons learned; Apple will introduce new products and features useful to law enforcement, including CarPlay, Collision Detection, Satellite Emergency SOS, Vision Pro and more,” can we read in an email from Apple to participants regarding the 2023 event.
John McMahon, deputy chief and public information officer at the LAPD, said the event was one of the most useful police conferences he has ever attended because it showed him how agencies around the world “were so far ahead of American police and the use of technology and the ability to mobilize”.
“I have worked in law enforcement for almost 36 years. I have never been part of such a collaborative engagement”declared to Forbes John McMahon, who also presented at last year’s event.
Among the most memorable presentations at the 2023 event, New Zealand Police explained how they worked with a local developer to create an iOS app to store and access police information, said Gary Oldham. Called OnDuty, the app is connected to the National Intelligence Database and makes it easy to search for data such as locations, license plate numbers and individual criminal histories. Other iOS apps used by New Zealand Police provide situational awareness, showing officers if people under surveillance are known to frequent an area or if it is a location where crimes have already occurred. location, according to the presentation slides provided to Forbes by the New Zealand Police.
Gary Oldham, a former police officer, said he grew Apple’s public safety market share from about 10 percent to 70 percent in Apple’s target markets around the world. As he stated on his LinkedIn page: “In a number of countries, I have increased our share to 80% or more and achieved 100% public safety market share in four countries. »
Close collaboration with Californian police agencies
Apple’s collaboration with police appears to have been closer with neighboring agencies in California, according to emails obtained from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. In one of these emails, Gary Oldham states that the OCSD, LAPD, San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office (LASD) are all “doing great things on our platform”. Between them, the agencies have deployed and tested applications for a variety of Apple products, from the Vision Pro to iPhones and Macs, whether for access to surveillance data or for basic communications. Gary Oldham was looking to set up meetings with other Southern California agencies to further the use of Apple technology within the state’s police force.
As Forbes Previously reported, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department tested Apple’s Vision Pro VR headset to create a virtual version of its surveillance data center, which the agency calls Real Time Operations Center (real-time operations center). Emails show the agency was interested in using a Vision Pro as early as March of this year, after learning that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Operations Bureau had used the ‘tool. An Instagram post from September later showed that the LASD was using Vision Pro devices to view maps and incident management tools to respond to emergency situations.
Apple employee Ritz Sherman, who has worked on the company’s government projects since the late 1980s, connected the two agencies, according to the emails. Orange County later confirmed to Forbes that he had purchased a Vision Pro to test the technology. The LAPD is also about to begin testing Vision Pros for its surveillance work, according to public documents. “A room of display monitors and a command post can be made with just one pair of glasses”said Deputy Chief John McMahon.
“The Apple ecosystem works very well. »
Dave Fontneau, Orange County Police IT Director
Police were also interested in Apple’s CarPlay, which transforms a car’s dashboard into an iOS screen. The emails indicate that the LAPD, Orange County and LASD hosted a meeting with executives from the automaker Ford at the IACP event in October to discuss the use of CarPlay. Dave Fontneau, IT director for the Orange County Police Department, previously told Forbes that he was considering replacing all laptops in police cars with Apple CarPlay in the dashboards of police vehicles. “The Apple ecosystem works very well”he declared. Gary Oldham said US agencies wanted to emulate the Western Australian police force’s rollout of CarPlay, where officers use Siri to access police data and notify their department of incidents. John McMahon said there is also a safety aspect, as the metal structures that hold in-car laptops in place have previously injured and killed police officers in road accidents.
Could Apple stop courting police departments?
But Apple’s approach to courting law enforcement may be changing. In July 2024, Gary Oldham told police clients that he had failed to secure a budget for the Global Police Summit of 2024, but that he hoped it would become a biennial event. A week later, he emailed California police again to tell them he was leaving the company, without giving a reason. Gary Oldham declined to comment on the reasons for his departure.
The police now hope that Apple will reconsider organizing the summit. “I am extremely disappointed that, for one reason or another, it was not possible to organize the summit this year”said John McMahon.
Even if Apple permanently cancels the event, police remain eager to increase their use of the company’s tools. When informed of the cancellation of this year’s conference, Orange County’s Dave Fontneau wrote to Gary Oldham: “It was one of the key events we all looked forward to every year. » Before adding: “I guess we’ll go to the Android event this year.” »
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