page_title: Domain Awareness System
section_title: Hardware
hierarchical_section_title: Domain Awareness System / Capabilities / Hardware
caption_attribution_description: NYPD Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor.
context_page_description: The Domain Awareness System is the largest digital surveillance system in the world as part of the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative in partnership between the New York Police Department and Microsoft to monitor New York City. It allows the NYPD to track surveillance targets and gain detailed information about them, and is overseen by the counterterrorism bureau.
  The system is connected to 18,000 CCTV cameras video cameras around New York City. It also has access to data from at least 2 billion license plate readings, 100 million summonses, 54 million 911 calls, 15 million complaints, 12 million detective reports, 11 million arrests and 2 million warrants. The data from the CCTV cameras is kept for 30 days, the LPR readings for at least 5 years. Text records are searchable.
  The initial cost of development was funded by $350 million in Federal Homeland Security grants. The software component of the system is also licensed out to other cities with New York City getting 30% of the profits. So far the system has been licensed by the Washington DC Metro Police, the Brazilian National Police, and the Singapore Police Force.
context_section_description: The backbone of DAS is a network of thousands of physical sensors. 
  The most widespread are the network of approximately 9,000 CCTV cameras, owned either by the NYPD or private actors, which are used to generate an aggregate citywide video stream, which are maintained for 30 days, and can be searched in realtime by officers. Search queries may include physical characteristics such as shirt color. Search results include live video feeds of all individuals fitting a given query within a given region.  The Intercept has claimed that the search functionality extends to racial characteristics such as skin tone.
  Helinet technologies gave a press release in 2014 stating that they were selected by the NYPD to deploy a custom technology suite to four of the NYPD's Bell 429 GlobalRanger helicopters which "instantl[y] overlays critical information such as addresses, points of interest and other data on top of the live video and then transmit[s] the video and data in real-time via secure microwave downlink" to handheld devices of officers in the field.
  There are also several hundred automated license plate readers (LPR's) deployed throughout the city, with 50 fixed cameras on bridges and tunnels entering Manhattan and running the full length of Canal Street. These sensors record every spotting of license plates on a NYPD-defined "watch list," generating roughly 3 million records per day. However, all license plate readings are stored for a minimum of five years regardless of whether or not the plate is on any watchlist.
  Officers can be alerted whenever a pattern of repeated visits to the same location or route is observed, with the stated goal of making it easier for officers to interdict and apprehend the drivers of monitored vehicles more efficiently than is possible with GPS tracking.
  A FOIL request by the NYCLU revealed a $442,5000 contract with Vigilance Solutions to provide access to real-time and historical license plate records from around the country.
  Additionally, DAS pulls in data from dozens of radiation and chemical sensors located on key infrastructure and precinct roofs, gunshot detectors, and cell tower simulators spread throughout the city.
caption: NYPD vehicle with mobile license plate readers.
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