Food Delivery Robots Record Camera Footage To Send To The LAPD: Report

Image: Serve Robotics

Those food delivery robots you see may be doing more than just bringing someone their Chipotle order. 404Media reports that the company that operates the robots is allegedly giving video footage to the LAPD for use in criminal investigations.

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Internal emails obtained by 404 show that during an incident in which two suspects attempted to steal a delivery robot made by the company Serve Robotics, the LAPD got a subpoena that allowed them to obtain camera footage from the robot during its time on the streets. The footage was used to identify the suspects for their eventual arrest. Other emails show that Serve was more than willing to comply with helping the police in the incident.

404 reached out to the LAPD to see if footage from other robots have been used in any other instances. The department responded claiming that they know of no other incidents in which they would have had to use footage from the robots for a crime.

“The incident described was a Grand Theft. They attempted to steal the robot. The department is not aware of other similar incidents.” The LAPD then added a vague statement about basic police work and declined to elaborate on its relationship with Serve: “Officers will meet with the person reporting to establish if there is a crime involved. If there is a suspect officers will make an arrest. If the suspect is not at scene officers will complete a report and detectives will do a follow-up investigation.”

404 dug further, pressing Serve Robotics on whether or not they’re actively recording, collecting and saving footage of LA residents. In a statement, Serve claims that their privacy policy regarding camera footage is that the “robot’s camera feed is routinely deleted, unless there are compelling safety or security concerns.”

While both the LAPD and Serve claim that the incident with the two suspects attempting to steal one of the robots was the only incident they know of like that, other emails obtained show Serve mentioning camera footage to the LAPD before. There’s an email showing Serve’s head of public policy Vignesh Ganapathy emailing an LAPD sergeant to tell him the company has footage of a driver “intentionally driving into one of our robots repeatedly, wedging it into a Sprouts parking structure” and freely offering the footage to the department.

Other emails show the company the LAPD talking about a partnership to combat vandalism on the company’s robots. The whole report is extensive and worth a read that you can check out here.