June 5 A meeting of the Pinal County Supervisors Council was invited to approve a $ 500,000 contract between the county and the massive blue in order to concede in Overwatch.
“I was watching the website for a massive blue, and it is a pager without additional and linked information,” Kevin Cavanaugh said, then a district 1, to the chief of the county of Pinal at the sheriff's office, Matthew Thomas. “They produce software that we buy, and what does that do it?” Can you explain this to us? “
“I cannot go into details because they are essentially commercial secrets, and I do not want to tip our hand to the bad guys,” said Thomas. “But what I can tell you is that the software is designed to help our investigators seek and find and build a case on human trafficking, drug trafficking and firearm traffic.”
Cavanaugh said during the board of directors that the basic information he obtained is that Massive Blue uses “50 Bots AI”. He then asked if the software had succeeded and if that helped the police to arrest. Thomas explained that they had not yet made arrests because they had only seen the proof of concept, but that the proof of concept was “good enough for us and our investigators to move forward.
Cavanaugh asked if Overwatch was used in other counties, which encouraged Thomas to invite Clem to the podium to speak. Clem presented himself as a recently retired border officer and declared that Massive Blue was currently in negotiations with three counties in Arizona, including the county of Pinal.
“As a 14 -year -old Pinalian County resident, I know what's going on here,” Clem told the supervisors' council. “To be able to (use) this program (…) to provide all the information necessary to go after the online exploitation of children, milking victims and all other verticals that sheriff may want to continue.”
Cavanaugh again asked if massive Blue had gathered data that led to arrests.
“We have not yet made arrests, but there is a current investigation at the moment concerning the criminal fire, and we have had training for investigators,” said Clem, explaining that the program has been active for about six months. “The surveys take time, but we have been able to generate the prospects necessary for the private counties with which we are involved and also in the private sector.”
The Pinal County Supervisors Council concluded the scholarship by approving payment for a handful of other unrelated projects, but with the members of the board of directors requesting to delay the vote on the payment of a massive blue “for a more in -depth study”.
The decision not to finance the massive blue that day was covered by a local newspaper. Cavanaugh told the newspaper that he had asked the company to meet supervisors to explain the advantages of the software.
“The state of Arizona has provided a subsidy, but the subsidy is taxpayers' money. No matter the source of funding, the fight against human and sexual trafficking is too important to risk half a million dollars in unproven technology,” he said. “If the company demonstrates that it can provide evidence to stop traffickers of human beings, it can be worth it. However, he has not yet achieved this goal. ”
