EFF's Guide to Getting Records About Axon's Draft One AI-Generated Police Reports

The moment Axon Enterprise announced a new product, Draft One, that would allow law enforcement officers to use artificial intelligence to automatically generate incident report narratives based on body-worn camera audio, everyone in the police accountability community immediately started asking the same questions. 

What do AI-generated police reports look like? What kind of paper trail does this system leave? How do we get a hold of documentation using public records laws? 

Unfortunately, obtaining these records isn't easy. In many cases, it's straight-up impossible. 

Read our full report on how Axon's Draft One defies transparency expectations by design here. 

In some jurisdictions, the documents are walled off behind government-created barriers. For example, California fully exempts police narrative reports from public disclosure, while other states charge fees to access individual reports that become astronomical if you want to analyze the output in bulk. Then there are technical barriers: Axon's product itself does not allow agencies to isolate reports that contain an AI-generated narrative, although an agency can voluntarily institute measures to make them searchable by a keyword.  

This spring, EFF tested out different public records request templates and sent them to dozens of law enforcement agencies we believed are using Draft One. 

We asked each agency for the Draft One-generated police reports themselves, knowing that in most cases this would be a long shot. We also dug into Axon's user manuals to figure out what kind of logs are generated and how to carefully phrase our public records request to get them. We asked for the current system settings for Draft One, since there are a lot of levers police administrators can pull that drastically change how and when officers can use the software. We also requested the standard records that we usually ask for when researching new technologies: procurement documents, agreements, training manuals, policies, and emails with vendors. 

Like all mass public records campaigns, the results were… mixed. Some agencies were refreshingly open with their records. Others assessed us records fees well outside the usual range for a non-profit organization. 

What we learned about the process is worth sharing. Axon has thousands of clients nationwide that use its Tasers, body-worn cameras and bundles of surveillance equipment, and the company is using those existing relationships to heavily promote Draft One.  We expect many more cities to deploy the technology over the next few years. Watchdogging police use of AI will require a nationwide effort by journalists, advocacy organizations and community volunteers.

Below we’re sharing some sample language you can use in your own public records requests about Draft One — but be warned. It’s likely that the more you include, the longer it might take and the higher the fees will get. The template language and our suggestions for filing public records requests are not legal advice. If you have specific questions about a public records request you filed, consult a lawyer.

1. Police Reports

Language to try in your public records request:

• All police report narratives, supplemental report narratives, warrant affidavits, statements, and other narratives generated using Axon Draft One to document law enforcement-related incidents for the period between [DATE IN THE LAST FEW WEEKS] and the date this request is received. If your agency requires a Draft One disclosure in the text of the message, you can use "Draft One" as a keyword search term.

Or

• The [NUMBER] most recent police report narratives that were generated using Axon Draft One between [DATE IN THE LAST FEW WEEKS] and the date this request is received.

If you are curious about a particular officer's Draft One usage, you can also ask for their reports specifically. However it may be helpful to obtain their usage log first (see section 2).

• All police report narratives, supplemental report narratives, warrant affidavits, statements, and other narratives generated by [OFFICER NAME] using Axon Draft One to document law enforcement-related incidents for the period between [DATE IN THE LAST FEW WEEKS] and the date this request is received.