LAPD and Other Cops Eye 'GeoSpy'

Hey there. Remember GeoSpy, the AI tool that could very quickly geolocate photos? Well, now we know that the LAPD is interested in the tech, according to emails we obtained. This is the first time anyone has named an agency that reached out to GeoSpy to get more information. The company's founder recently showed how GeoSpy could be used in sanctuary cities, and specifically Los Angeles. The full story, with a ton more details, follows below.

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The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has shown interest in using GeoSpy, a powerful AI tool that can pinpoint the location of photos based on features such as the soil, architecture, and other identifying features, according to emails obtained by 404 Media. The news also comes as GeoSpy’s founder shared a video showing how the tool can be used in relation to undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities, and specifically Los Angeles.

The emails provide the first named case of a law enforcement agency showing clear interest in the tool. GeoSpy can also let law enforcement determine what home or building, down to the specific address, a photo came from, in some cases including photos taken inside with no windows or view of the street.

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“Let’s start with one seat/license (me),” an October 2024 email from an LAPD official to Graylark Technologies, the company behind GeoSpy, reads. The LAPD official is from the agency’s Robbery-Homicide division, according to the email. 404 Media obtained the emails through a public records request with the LAPD.

The email conversation appears to be in response to the LAPD inquiring about the tool, with one email from GeoSpy saying “We received your inquiry about our PRO tool.” The email then answers some questions that appeared to have been asked by the LAPD about pricing and when the tool will be available.

Later on, Dan Heinen, the founder of Graylark which makes GeoSpy, tells the LAPD official that the annual cost of GeoSpy is $5,000 per user, which provides 350 searches. In the October 2024 email, the LAPD official wrote that “Any purchase wouldn’t be for about a year out.” 

This week Heinen uploaded a demonstration video of GeoSpy to the company’s Discord server which shows it geolocating a photo in Los Angeles. With dramatic music playing, the user brings up a tweet from X.com commentator Kevin Dalton, which says “Sanctuary cities get people killed.”

“Los Angeles man shot and killed by 2 illegal immigrants attempting to steal his catalytic converter. Both men had been arrested and released more than a DOZEN times in LA county for violent crimes in the past few years,” Dalton adds. The tweet refers to the murder of Juan Miguel Sanchez in February.

The GeoSpy user then crops a section of that video, which comes from a Ring camera, to show just one of the homes in the background and uploads it to GeoSpy.

“Searching CA - Los Angeles… Analyzing image features to determine precise location,” the tool says.

A few seconds later, GeoSpy then provides what it believes to be the precise latitude and longitude coordinates where the photo was taken, the property address, and a Google Street view interface for exploring that location. Heinen previously uploaded another test video related to Los Angeles which shows similar capabilities. That clip briefly shows a dropdown menu of other locations such as Las Vegas, Memphis, and Miami Dade County. Representatives from law enforcement agencies in those locations did not respond to a request for comment.

Heinen and other representatives of GeoSpy did not respond to a request for comment. In an interview with the tech publication Indicator published Monday, Heinen said “My job as a leader in my space is to build the best technology that customers are asking for. It's not my job to play the ethics game because our elected officials will eventually figure that out. I have full faith in the American people to decide who to elect and what to vote on.”

The LAPD did not respond to multiple requests for comment about its interest in GeoSpy. Although Los Angeles is a sanctuary city, meaning that local law enforcement cannot legally help federal authorities with immigration enforcement, the agency cracked down on anti-ICE protests earlier in the year.

Cooper Quintin, senior public interest technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), has been following GeoSpy and said he was given access to the tool. On the LAPD’s interest in the tech, he said GeoSpy “should be a powerful reminder that what we post on social media isn’t private,” especially if combined with social media monitoring tools. 

He added that in his tests “GeoSpy has proven to not be very accurate in my experience and this tool could lead to false accusations and further harassment of innocent people. It’s also a powerful tool for stalking or other misuse by police.” He said if the LAPD are going to use tools like GeoSpy, there needs to be community oversight, transparency, and accountability for misuse.

A screenshot of one of the emails. Image: 404 Media.

Open source intelligence (OSINT) practitioners have been geolocating photos like this for years. What makes GeoSpy different is that it allows essentially any law enforcement officer with no expertise to geolocate photos near instantly. 

GeoSpy is trained on hundreds millions of images worldwide, which allow it to “recognize distinct geographical markers such as architectural styles, soil characteristics, and their spatial relationships,” according to marketing material available online. Regarding where GeoSpy’s training dataset comes from, in the Indicator interview Heinen said “There's lots of data sets out there that people don't know about. Through partnerships, purchasing data etcetera, we've been able to license data that isn't really privacy problematic, and that has geotags in them.”

Under a section of its website entitled “For Enterprise & Law Enforcement,” the company says “GeoSpy is an advanced platform integrating powerful AI location models for your city or country. Delivering up to meter level accuracy, state of the art computer vision models all in an easy to use interface.”

Recently GeoSpy said its tool had been used by an unnamed metropolitan police department to track down a fugitive who posted a photo of his car to his Instagram Story. This photo has no GPS metadata and was in an area that had virtually no public map data because it was a new development, according to the blog post on GeoSpy’s website. The company claims the police department was able to find a location in 20 minutes and made an arrest. 

The image posted online of a GeoSpy demonstration in a Secret Service field office. Redactions included in original.

GeoSpy appears to have been in communication with other local law enforcement agencies too. Heinen recently uploaded a photo of himself giving a demonstration of GeoSpy in a room with a law enforcement agency's logo. The distinctive shield logo was redacted in the photo but 404 Media saw it resembled the Secret Service. The Secret Service told 404 Media the demonstration took place at the agency's Miami field office, but that it was for local law enforcement and not the Secret Service. Local agencies in the Miami area did not respond to requests for comment.

404 Media first covered GeoSpy in January, when the tool was being marketed to government agencies but also had a public version that anyone could use. At the time, some members of GeoSpy’s Discord asked for help locating specific women. GeoSpy closed off its public access tool after 404 Media’s reporting.

Recently GeoSpy has been advertising its ability to geolocate indoor photographs. Heinen tweeted a video last month which took a still from a TikTok showing an interior wall. GeoSpy then provided an address for a property.

In GeoSpy’s Discord, someone presented themselves as a representative of a private intelligence company called Colossus. “We’re a small ex mil protective intelligence provider,” the person said while showing interest in gaining access to GeoSpy. Colossus did not respond to a request for comment.