Matroid and the Federal Government

Matroid is proud to announce we have been awarded contracts totalling more than $20 million by the Department of Homeland Security and the Air Force. We are working hard to deliver high-quality software, in an ethical and socially responsible manner.

We are diligently working with the government on:

• Detecting cracks, scratches, dents, and other abnormalities on equipment
• Wait-time measurement: we help agencies measure wait-times, without identifying any specific person waiting in a queue. These wait times are used to reduce traffic and congestion at ports of entry and generally help evaluate the speed of processing at various ports.
• Getting help to those considering suicide: we believe it is a moral imperative to provide support to those considering suicide. If these situations can be detected with CV early enough before a person, e.g. jumps in front of a train, we believe that it is our duty to bring help to that person. This can be achieved without use of face recognition or other personally identifiable features.
• Wildfire prevention: wildfires can be detected from satellite and overhead imagery automatically. This can provide critical early warning to firefighters and other ground crews ready to mitigate fire spread.

None of these projects involve face recognition, nor do they track an individual’s identity.

As a company based in the US, we believe in democracy and the will of the people to guide proper use of technology. However, we also recognize that regulation is not always fast to come when new technology is brought to the market, and therefore we’ve deliberately put constraints on what we will work on.

At Matroid we frequently are astounded by the power of Computer Vision, and that power comes with great responsibility. Questions of the mis-use of CV are on our minds daily, and we think about how these powers should become available to people and companies who want to use them.