For years, a US telecommunications company has been building proprietary AI models using phone and video calls placed by inmates in US prisons as building blocks.

According to MIT Technology Review, the private equity-backed Securus Technologies has been developing its AI products since 2023, but it has troves of recorded conversations going back far longer. The exact sources of this data is unknown, but it reportedly includes facilities ranging from local jails to long-term prisons to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detainment centers.

The AI models are designed to detect “criminal activity” in real time, Securus president Kevin Elder told Tech Review. One model, for example, was trained on seven years worth of calls by inmates in Texas state prisons for use in Texas, which suggest

See Full Page