Recently, a U.S. telecommunications company named Securus Technologies has secretly used phone and video call records of inmates in prisons to build its proprietary artificial intelligence model. According to a report by MIT Technology Review, Securus began developing its AI product in 2023, while the data it collected had been accumulated much earlier. This data comes from various prisons, ranging from local jails to long-term incarceration facilities, including detention centers run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Securus' AI model is designed to detect "criminal activities" in real time. Its president, Kevin Eldred, stated that the company has used seven years of call records from prisons in Texas to train the model, indicating that its AI technology is tailored to local or state conditions. He said, "We can use these large language models to analyze massive data, thereby identifying early signs of criminal activities."

Although both parties in the call are informed that their conversation is being recorded, Bianca Tylor, executive director of the prisoner rights organization "Worth Rises," says this notification method is essentially "coerced consent." She pointed out, "Inmates have almost no other choice but to communicate with their families."

John Dukes, who was incarcerated in the Cincinnati Correctional Facility in New York, recalled that in 2019, Securus had already tested voice recognition software on him. He said, "This is yet another part of my personal privacy I have to give up in this prison system."

Today, Securus' AI system is more advanced, capable of identifying voices in calls involving not only pretrial and convicted inmates, but also their family members, friends, and lawyers. According to a report by MIT Technology Review, Securus' ultimate goal is to provide prison administrators with a multifunctional tool for monitoring specific inmates or conducting random checks.

All of this reveals a concerning reality: in the United States, prisoners' telephone services have evolved into a high-profit industry. According to data from the "Prison News Project," the U.S. prison telephone services market generates $1.2 billion in annual revenue, and Securus is one of the major players in this market. In this era where data has become the new "oil," calls between prisoners and their families are not just high-cost items on family bills, but also training materials for AI surveillance.

Key Points:  

📞 Securus Technologies uses prisoners' phone records to build an AI model to detect criminal activities.  

🛑 The phenomenon of "coerced consent" where prisoners are informed of recording raises concerns among prisoner rights organizations.  

💰 Prison telephone services have become a profitable industry, generating $1.2 billion annually.