Google Cloud is at the center of a Customs and Border Protection plan to modernize video surveillance towers that involves deploying machine learning along the southern border, despite previous assurances from the woke Silicon Valley giant to its leftist employees that it was not involved in such projects.
Federal contract documents reviewed by the Intercept reveal that Google Cloud is playing a critical role in upgrading the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) so-called “virtual wall” along the Mexican border. This comes five years after Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian assured employees that the company was not working on any projects related to immigration enforcement at the southern border.
The CBP’s plan involves modernizing older video surveillance towers in Arizona, which provide the agency with continuous monitoring of the border. A key aspect of this effort is the integration of machine learning capabilities into CBP cameras, enabling automatic detection of humans and vehicles approaching the border without the need for constant human monitoring.
According to the documents, CBP is purchasing computer vision technology from two vendors: IBM and Equitus. Google’s role is to stitch these services together by operating a central repository for video surveillance data through its ModulAr Google Cloud Platform Environment (MAGE).
The project focuses on upgrading 50 towers with up to 100 cameras across six sites in the Tucson Sector. IBM will provide its Maximo Visual Inspection software, typically marketed for industrial quality control inspections, while Equitus will offer its Video Sentinel, a video surveillance analytics program designed for border surveillance.
A technical diagram within the document shows that every camera in CBP’s Tucson Sector will feed data into Google’s servers. The resulting metadata and keyframes will be sent to CBP’s Google Cloud, with the document stating, “This project will focus initially on 100 simultaneous video streams from the data source for processing.”
During President Trump’s first term, border surveillance and immigration enforcement work carried a stigma in the woke tech sector that has partially dissipated today. In 2020, The Intercept revealed a document indicating Google Cloud services would be used with AI-augmented surveillance towers manufactured by defense contractor Anduril. However, Google’s Thomas Kurian quickly attempted damage control, directly contradicting the Department of Homeland Security and assuring concerned employees that Google was not involved in immigration enforcement on the Mexican border.
Now, it appears that if Kurian’s statement was true then, it certainly isn’t now. References to Google services appear repeatedly throughout the tower modernization project document, with Google’s MAGE positioned at the center of the video data flow between various CBP servers.
Advocates of the “virtual wall” initiative have long touted it as a substitute for physical barriers and Border Patrol agents. Google’s rabidly leftist employees are not likely to see it that way.
Read more at the Intercept here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
