The CEO of surveillance firm Banjo , one of the many firms pitching law enforcement agencies across the state on artificial intelligence and crowing data - backedpredictive policing , is leave behind the ship’s company afteran April reportouted him as a former neo - Nazi skinhead who was involved in a 1990 Ku Klux Klan drive - by tear on a temple .
Banjo drop a line in abrief blog poston Monday that Damien Patton will no longer contain the CEO function “ effectual immediately ” and will be supervene upon in that mental ability by main technology officer Justin R. Lindsey . The fellowship did n’t explicitly refer to Patton ’s past , and he only advert to the issue in that statement .
“ I am convinced Banjo ’s great days are still onwards , and will do everything in my power to assure our mission win , ” Patton wrote . “ However , under the current condition , I conceive Banjo ’s expert itinerary ahead is under dissimilar leadership . ”
Screenshot: (Banjo)
The investigating , put up last calendar month on OneZero , regain that when Patton was 17 , he was involved with the Dixie Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and testified against other members in court that he was the number one wood in an evening shooting of a Nashville synagogue before hiding out at a paramilitary chemical compound and leave behind the state . No one was physically wounded or killed in the incident .
Patton was charged and pleaded hangdog to bit of puerile delinquency , while the two other Klan phallus , Leonard William Armstrong and Jonathan David Brown , were brought up on civil rights charges . Armstrong call for a supplication wad and Brown was convicted of accessory after the fact to a conspiracy to violate civil right and two numeration of consist to the grand jury , according to OneZero .
Leak Exposes U.S. Navy Sailor as Once - Prolific Recruiter for Neo - Nazi Group [ Updated ]
Patton also take on to participating in other Klan - related natural process like meetings and language , and OneZero find he appeared in a photo in an August 1992 clause in the Tennessean on efforts to work up a Tennessee office of the Aryan Nations . That photo showed Patton and other white supremacist at the home of onetime Aryan Nations leaderBobby Norton .
Banjo secured a five - year , $ 20.7 million contract with the state of Utah in July 2019 to pull information including traffic and security camera feeds , 911 telephone call , geolocation data for commonwealth vehicles , and more and couple it with datum from societal media feeds to shape what it call a “ Live Time Intelligence ” system of rules . According to Motherboard , as of former March 2020 it was tie in to 911 call centers across the land , as well as was deployed or planning to deploy in 13 county , 13 of the state ’s biggest cities , 10 other cities “ of meaning relevance , ” the University of Utah campus , and dozens of other localities .
That contract wasput on holdas of April 30 ; in astatement to TechCrunch , the Utah Attorney General ’s situation say it was “ shocked and dismayed ” to hear of Patton ’s past tense . TheDeseret News reportedthat the AG ’s office has moved up a previously planned audited account of the declaration with Banjo and that it was seeking to hire a third party contractor to conduct an investigation .
DoS auditor John Dougall has also said his office would be look into whether there is any grounds that Banjo ’s program hasany “ algorithmic biases,”adding the investigation would be complicated enough to imply secret expert , practice of law enforcement , and academia and take up to a year to dispatch .
Research has show that surveillance technologies like face recognition are in their current state areriddled with algorithmic biases , making their use in mass surveillance alarming above and beyond the other privacy and due process concern they pose — and Banjo is n’t the only house in the field whose founder has a confutable backstory . look acknowledgment business firm Clearview AI latterly allege it would terminate all secret contract bridge after study revealed its top dog Hoan Ton - That ’s extensive ties to thefar - right field movement , with the firm enunciate it would instead focus on its effortswith law enforcement .
Patton told the Deseret News he had “ suffered abuse in every form ” as a child and that he had abandoned his extremist views while serving in the U.S. Navy .
“ I did painful things and said despicable and hateful matter , include to my own Judaic female parent , that today I determine indefensibly wrong , and feel extreme remorse for , ” Patton tell the paper . “ I have spend most of my adult life function to make amends for this scandalous period in my animation … For all of those I have injure , and that this revelation will ache , I ’m no-count . No apology will undo what I have done . ”
Patton added that his intent with his recent work was to “ stop human suffering and save lives without break privacy . I cognize that I will never be capable to score out my past , but I bring intemperately every day to make up for mistakes . This is something I will never stop doing . ”
A company representative confirmed to the Deseret News that Patton is no longer “ an employee , no longer on the board , and has no operating capacity on the company . ”
PrivacySurveillanceTechnologyUtahWhite Supremacy
Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , scientific discipline , and cultivation news in your inbox daily .
News from the future , turn in to your present .
You May Also Like
