The merging of My90, which is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area and is about five years old, into Axon follows a push from the company in recent years to position itself — as well as the agencies it serves — to more proactively address the growing concerns surrounding policing in recent years. In 2018, the company set up an independent oversight board to pre-emptively study issues with new products Axon was working on, providing recommendations to tackle the ethics of that tech head-on. In 2019 the company decided to turn away from providing facial recognition for body-worn cameras — a move that seemed prescient a year later when larger companies like Amazon and Microsoft stepped back from facial recognition in law enforcement as well.
Community surveys and anonymous feedback are some of the tools police departments have to identify when and where people are most concerned about policing practices, and can also be used to guide law enforcement when it comes to how and whether to implement new technology.
“Axon’s Community Impact team was formed to incorporate community voice into Axon products and services and assist our public safety partners with programming and strategies to enhance their relationships with the communities they serve,” said Regina Holloway, Axon’s VP of community impact, in a press release. “We are excited to continue this commitment to community by providing a tool that will amplify this work of finding common ground between community and public safety.”
