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By Detective Shannon Belanger
Policing has all the time needed to adapt to expertise. The distinction at the moment is that expertise is evolving sooner than our insurance policies, coaching cycles and procurement timelines can sustain.
That hole creates a predictable sample: we first study a brand new functionality after it turns into an issue — after a prison makes use of it, after a sufferer is harmed, after a viral incident forces a coverage response, or after a case hits the information. By then, we’re reacting. We’re behind.
The level of attending CES isn’t to chase devices. It’s to interrupt that sample.
What CES is — and why it issues
CES stands for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It is the world’s largest expertise exhibition, bringing collectively 1000’s of firms, engineers, researchers and innovators from throughout the globe. CES isn’t a conventional regulation enforcement convention. There are not any coverage panels or case regulation updates. It’s the place rising expertise seems first — typically years earlier than it turns into mainstream and lengthy earlier than it reaches public security functions.
It’s additionally monumental. So massive, in reality, that it’s unimaginable to see all of it within the time you’re given. If you attend, you want a plan of assault. Wandering aimlessly by CES is the quickest solution to waste the benefit of being there. The worth comes from selecting focus areas, figuring out priorities and treating the present like reconnaissance somewhat than tourism.
The stigma of Las Vegas — and the truth of coaching worth
Las Vegas has all the time carried a stigma in regulation enforcement circles. Mention coaching or a convention there, and assumptions are likely to arrive earlier than explanations: that the work will take a again seat to the placement, that nights can be late and mornings non-obligatory, and that no matter is being realized might most likely be realized some other place — ideally someplace much less distracting.
But the town isn’t the variable. Judgment is. Location doesn’t create judgment. Character does. Command workers already perceive this. Every coaching determination comes all the way down to the identical query: who will be trusted to characterize the company, soak up info and return with worth. CES doesn’t change that calculus. It merely makes it extra seen due to the place it’s held.
I’ve spent greater than 23 years in regulation enforcement, together with 17 in extremely specialised technology-focused assignments. Long earlier than I wore a badge, I used to be drawn to how expertise works — and the way it fails. Moving into digital surveillance and technical operations wasn’t a shift. It was alignment.
This yr marked my fourth CES. It additionally marked the primary time my company absolutely funded the journey, masking airfare, lodging and transportation.
Ironically, Las Vegas is steadily one of the crucial cost-effective locations to coach.
CES isn’t a showroom — it’s an early warning system
CES exists on the earliest stage of the expertise lifecycle. This is the place instruments are unveiled, refined and stress-tested in actual time. For regulation enforcement, that issues not solely as a result of it reveals what expertise can do, however as a result of it reveals how it may be misused, repurposed, or exploited.
This yr’s present supplied no scarcity of examples. Rapidly evolving AI platforms. Autonomous autos working with minimal human enter. Drones able to deployment speeds that problem conventional response timelines. Combat-capable robotics that blur the road between industrial use and tactical utility.
One of essentially the most putting moments of the week was attending the Lenovo keynote on the Sphere in Las Vegas. Beyond the spectacle, the message was unmistakable: computing energy, AI integration, and platform convergence are accelerating far sooner than coverage and regulation can hold tempo.
The actual benefit: conversations you may’t get anyplace else
Equally priceless had been the conversations taking place offstage.
CES creates entry that’s practically unimaginable to duplicate elsewhere. In a single day, I spoke with engineers and researchers from Korea, China, Japan and France — individuals constructing the programs that may quickly be embedded into shopper units and enterprise platforms worldwide.
During CES, nearly everybody you meet is there for CES. That modifications the social guidelines. Approaching strangers doesn’t really feel awkward — it feels anticipated. People are there to speak, to demo, to check notes. You can have a five-minute hallway dialog that provides you a yr’s price of perspective since you’re talking on to the individuals designing what’s coming subsequent.
Being one of many few attendees sporting a authorities badge turned an sudden benefit — and a dependable icebreaker. Conversations often started the identical approach: a look on the badge, a pause and the query: Why are you right here? That curiosity rapidly changed into concern as we walked by how applied sciences constructed for comfort will be repurposed, exploited and leveraged in methods most individuals by no means think about.
The exploitation drawback: The community is larger than the laptop computer
Compromise not begins with hacking a pc. It begins with a wise equipment, a wearable, or an IoT system quietly sitting on the identical community.
This yr, two phrases dominated conversations: digital twins and private brokers.
The idea is marketed as productiveness and personalization — AI programs that observe customers throughout platforms, handle duties and anticipate wants. What isn’t mentioned is the prison mirror of that mannequin. Criminal actors gained’t have only one digital twin. They could function a number of — hidden, purpose-built brokers, every designed for a selected and infrequently nefarious position.
In essentially the most disturbing instances, further AI brokers are designed explicitly to take advantage of vulnerability. Children are coerced by deepfakes, extortion and social manipulation. Elderly victims are focused by AI-driven impersonation, fraud and emotional exploitation, typically dropping life financial savings or being remoted from household earlier than anybody realizes what’s taking place.
Digital bullies not want bodily proximity. They wield reputational threats, humiliation and publicity as weapons, typically with devastating penalties for weak victims.
CES additionally reveals the answer facet
Alongside the dangers, the present featured life-saving applied sciences: rapid-deployment drones able to reaching scenes earlier than first responders, non-camera sensors that detect misery with out violating privateness, and assisted-care units designed to hurry triage and scale back human error throughout mass-casualty incidents.
CES isn’t about purchasing for devices. It’s about situational consciousness on the technological degree.
Call to motion
The applied sciences shaping the subsequent decade of policing are usually not rising slowly. They are arriving suddenly.
CES just isn’t about Las Vegas. It’s about whether or not policing continues to come across expertise solely after it has been weaponized — or whether or not leaders select to see what’s coming whereas there’s nonetheless time to arrange.
About the creator
Detective Shannon Belanger is a detective with the Broward Sheriff’s Office, specializing in digital surveillance, real-time intelligence programs, covert operations and rising regulation enforcement applied sciences. With over twenty years in public security, he has led initiatives involving AI-driven analytics and large-scale expertise modernization initiatives. His work focuses on bridging operational policing with next-generation instruments that improve officer security, investigative effectiveness and public belief. Outside of labor, he enjoys spending time along with his household boating within the Florida solar. His hobbies embrace tinkering with expertise, from 3D printing to AI programming.
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you may go to the hyperlink bellow:
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