PFT Media

TRANSCRIPT: Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer will deliver the 2018 State of the City Address August 7th at 10:30am at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. The Mayor will share the City’s current and future plans with the community. Locals can watch the presentation live as well as watch the recording of it later at cityoforlando.net.

The new area code for new phone customers in Orange, Osceola, Seminole, and parts of Lake and Volusia counties will be 689 within about 10 months. Customers with the 407 area code will retain it. The new code was supposed to be introduced in 2002 but because of an “aggressive push for number conservation plans,” it wasn’t.

The installation of the huge steel truss that will cross West Colonial as part of the new Colonial Pedestrian Overpass took place late Saturday night. During this time West Colonial Drive was completely closed between Orange Avenue and Garland Avenue. Once the entire  $9,024,000 quarter-mile Colonial Pedestrian Overpass project is complete later in early 2019, it’ll provide a safe connection from the Downtown core to the north, providing critical links between the Orlando Urban Trail and Gertrude’s Walk, SunRail and LYNX Central Station.

City of Orlando is working with the local creative company Prismatic on a social media campaign to address the issue of aggressive panhandling downtown. According to the Downtown Development Board’s Executive Director Thomas Chatmon, aggressive panhandling is a big issue since new panhandling laws were approved by City Council last July. The social media campaign is designed to change the behavior of “givers” and provide awareness to all regarding Orlando’s position as a compassionate city and its focus on ensuring all neighbors thrive, not survive,” according to the Communications Concepts document. The campaign will cost the City $20,000. It would encourage givers to provide and leverage their support through dedicated charity organizations and a “cashless donation solution” which could come in the form of a mobile website, an app, or a subscription service like Samaritan.

The City of Orlando and Orlando Police Department announced Monday they will be starting a new second phase proof of concept (POC) pilot program for the Amazon Rekognition facial recognition software.Amazon Rekognition, if eventually approved by the City, would give Police the following abilities:

1. Perform face searches in real time against collections of tens of millions of faces that the Police would provide.

2. Track those faces even when the camera is in motion.

3. Track those faces even when their face is blocked

4. Track those faces even when they move in and out of the frame

In May, Police Chief John Mina stated that Rekognition could be used in police officer body cams in the future. So an Officer, for example, could look at a large crowd and, using his body cam, know who in the crowd is a Felon. Or who is from Tampa. Or who is Latin. This second pilot will involve staff evaluation and internal testing of the software using film gathered from 8 City-owned cameras:

• 4 at Orlando Police Headquarters

• 1 at “another City facility”

• 3 IRIS public safety cameras

However, a written OPD statement admitted, “The number of cameras may be increased to ensure this technology solution can function as designed with a larger volume.”

No images of the public will be used for any testing during the second pilot according to the City. The cameras will only be used on seven police officers who volunteered. The technology will not be used in an investigative capacity and that all elements of the pilot are in accordance with current and applicable law, upholding all privacy laws and ensuring there are no violations of any individual’s civil rights.

In June, 11 groups wrote an open letter to Orlando Police Chief John Mina during the first pilot program for this software, asking him to reconsider the use of such technology due to privacy concerns.

Following the second pilot, if the City of Orlando Police Department decides to ultimately implement official use of the technology, City staff would explore procurement and develop a policy and governance surrounding the technology at that time.

Facial recognition software is already widely used for public safety purposes in China. It’s also used to shame jaywalkers. The country has 200 million surveillance cameras. Some police officers there even have facial recognition glasses.