By GoVia Highlight A Hero
The Viral Claim vs. The Real Question
In 2025, a viral claim spread rapidly across social media:
“Police can now see your bank accounts and everywhere you’ve been during a traffic stop using an AI tool called Gotham.”
The fear was immediate—and understandable. But the deeper issue is not whether that statement is literally true. The real question is how modern policing technology is reshaping power, privacy, and risk during everyday encounters.
At GoVia Highlight A Hero, our mission is to modernize police encounters without sacrificing civil liberties or officer safety. That requires an honest, fact‑based look at both sides of the story.
What Is Palantir Gotham—Really?
Palantir Gotham is a data‑integration and analytics platform used by some law‑enforcement agencies. It does not function as a single omniscient database, nor does it automatically grant access to private bank accounts or personal financial records.
What Gotham Can Do
- Integrate existing law‑enforcement data (incident reports, license plate data, prior stops)
- Visualize relationships between people, places, and events
- Surface patterns across multiple datasets
What Gotham Cannot Do (Without Legal Process)
- Instantly access bank balances or private financial accounts
- Bypass warrants, subpoenas, or constitutional protections
The real concern is data fusion. When many datasets are merged, new inferences emerge—sometimes without transparency, context, or human verification.
Risk doesn’t always come from new data—it comes from new conclusions.
Facial Recognition: Where Trust Breaks Down
Facial recognition tools—particularly those like Clearview AI—have intensified public distrust.
Why Facial Recognition Is Different
- Individuals are included without consent simply by existing online
- Independent investigations have linked facial recognition errors to wrongful arrests
- Studies show higher misidentification rates for women and people of color
Many jurisdictions now restrict or ban police facial recognition—not because technology is evil, but because accountability and safeguards lag behind capability.
GoVia’s position is clear: community safety tools should not rely on unregulated biometric surveillance.
Officer‑Created Jeopardy: The Missing Accountability Lens
A critical but often overlooked concept in policing is officer‑created (or officer‑induced) jeopardy.
What It Means
Officer‑created jeopardy occurs when:
- An officer’s pre‑force actions escalate a situation
- Unjustified risk‑taking increases danger to civilians and officers
- The threat later cited to justify force was avoidable
Why It Matters
Traditional reviews focus on the moment force is used. Officer‑created jeopardy asks a harder—but fairer—question:
Should this dangerous situation have existed at all?
This framework promotes better tactics, better training, and better outcomes for everyone involved.
The Numbers: Who Is Actually Being Pulled Over?
While national data cannot label each stop as “innocent” or “criminal,” the trends are revealing:
- 20+ million traffic stops occur annually in the U.S.
- Roughly 7–10% of Americans are stopped by police each year
- Only a small fraction of traffic stops are linked to serious criminal investigations
- 3–4% of police encounters involve threats or use of force
- Hundreds of civilians die annually in police encounters; hundreds of thousands are injured
The takeaway is simple: most police encounters involve non‑violent, non‑criminal citizens. When advanced analytics are introduced without guardrails, risk multiplies.
Where GoVia Highlight A Hero Draws the Line
GoVia is not anti‑police. We are pro‑safety, pro‑accountability, and pro‑community trust.
Our Design Principles
1. Privacy by Design
- Data minimization
- Consent‑based sharing
- Full audit logs
2. Transparency Over Surveillance
- Clear disclosure of what data exists
- No hidden analytics or secret scoring
3. De‑escalation First
- Context that supports calm, informed interactions
- Support for mental‑health‑aware responses
4. No Unregulated Facial Recognition
- No Clearview‑style scraping
- No biometric matching without strong legal frameworks
The Future of Public Safety Technology
Technology will continue to shape policing. The question is who it serves.
Will systems:
- Centralize power and suspicion?
- Or strengthen trust, clarity, and shared safety?
GoVia Highlight A Hero believes the future belongs to tools that:
✔ Protect constitutional rights
✔ Reduce unnecessary escalation
✔ Keep officers safer
✔ Empower communities—not surveil them
GoVia’s Final Word
Safety is not built through fear or unchecked data. It’s built through design, ethics, and accountability.
That’s the standard GoVia is committed to.
Because modern policing doesn’t need more surveillance—it needs more trust.
Learn more or join the conversation at GoVia Highlight A Hero.
