{"id":5916,"date":"2014-02-12T11:48:49","date_gmt":"2014-02-12T16:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myparkingsign.com\/blog\/?p=5916"},"modified":"2026-02-11T03:50:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:50:26","slug":"robocop-parking-pits-safety-privacy-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\/robocop-parking-pits-safety-privacy-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Robocop of parking pits safety against privacy and jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2014 remake of Robocop<\/i> opens nationwide today, but the public won\u2019t meet its real-life counterpart for at least another year. That\u2019s because K5, the diminutive robot set to police shopping malls, corporate campuses, and other public places, isn\u2019t set for the assembly line till 2015.<\/p>\n

Sneak previews of the bot will be available for some, though. Beginning next month, Knightscope<\/a>, the seven-person startup behind K5, will test the five-foot-tall, 300-pound machines at a dozen parking lots. \u201cOne of the things we\u2019re working on with our beta customers: the ability to detect empty parking spaces,\u201d said Stacy Stephens, Knightscope\u2019s marketing chief and a former officer with the Dallas police department.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Knightscope<\/a>

Parking proprietors eyeing the Knightscope parking ‘droid may end up telling themselves, “I’ll buy THAT for a dollar.” From Viet Fuji<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

The K5, which debuted late last year, will rely on built-in lasers that capture up to 270 degrees to photographically map the area it\u2019s monitoring in 3D. Its four, mid-mounted cameras with optical-character recognition will also allow the K5 to scan up to 1,500 license plates per minute, while sensor technology will allow the bot to travel at an average speed of 5 mph to avoid bumping into people and objects.<\/p>\n

With abilities so daunting, Knightscope wanted to insure that the all-seeing watcher bot appears approachable, cute even. \u201cWe wanted to be more like R2D2 and much less like Terminator or Robocop,\u201d said Stephens of the bullet-headed, mostly white K5.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no reason the K5 shouldn\u2019t see you passing by and greet you or whistle as it wheels along,\u201d added William Li, Knightscope\u2019s CEO. \u201cIt\u2019s the friendly robot that\u2019s trying to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

But not everyone has cottoned to the idea of an autonomous police-bot-cum-parking-valet. \u201cThis kind of surveillance technology has an unbounded capacity to collect personal information that a single patrol officer doesn\u2019t,\u201d said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the watchdog group Electronic Privacy Information Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Citing similar concerns over closed-circuit television and Google\u2019s ability to map cars, he continues, \u201cLaws need to be updated to acknowledge these technologies, and companies, in turn, need to act responsibly. To just say, \u2018Get used to it,\u2019 is not an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such critiques agitate Li. \u201cThere are 7 billion people on the planet, and we’ll soon have a few billion more, and law enforcement is not going to scale at the same rate. We literally can’t afford it,\u201d he said after explaining how the shooting and deaths at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012 provided the inspiration for the K5.<\/p>\n

The K5 prompts other worries: job loss for private security officers, a subject still sensitive in the fragile US economy. \u201cThere is no substitute for human beings when it comes to rapidly analyzing information and making a swift decision,\u201d said Bill Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations<\/a>. \u201cTechnology is useful, but it can\u2019t be a substitute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Li, describing the assignment of private security officers as \u201cmiserable jobs with turnover of 400 percent,\u201d reemphasized the dividends in safety that the K5 promises. \u201cWith big data and predictive analytics, we might be able to avoid some of these terrible tragedies we seem to read about every day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2014 remake of Robocop opens nationwide today, but the public won\u2019t meet its real-life counterpart for at least another year. That\u2019s because K5, the diminutive robot set to police shopping malls, corporate campuses, and other public places, isn\u2019t set for the assembly line till 2015. Sneak previews of the bot will be available for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,182],"tags":[229,319,378],"class_list":["post-5916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-parking-tech","tag-automated-parking-garages","tag-enforcement","tag-parking-enforcement"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Robocop of parking pits safety against privacy and jobs - MyParkingSign Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The 2014 remake of Robocop opens nationwide today, but the public won\u2019t meet its real-life counterpart for at least another year.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\/robocop-parking-pits-safety-privacy-jobs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Robocop of parking pits safety against privacy and jobs - MyParkingSign Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The 2014 remake of Robocop opens nationwide today, but the public won\u2019t meet its real-life counterpart for at least another year.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\/robocop-parking-pits-safety-privacy-jobs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"MyParkingSign Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parkingsigns\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-02-12T16:48:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-11T08:50:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/11232637155_546f522af1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"318\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cielo Lutino\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@MyParkingSign\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@MyParkingSign\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Cielo Lutino\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\\\/robocop-parking-pits-safety-privacy-jobs\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\\\/robocop-parking-pits-safety-privacy-jobs\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Cielo Lutino\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/a5af201a0d9ca4221c4d1ff6b42d9e23\"},\"headline\":\"The Robocop of parking pits safety against privacy and jobs\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-02-12T16:48:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-11T08:50:26+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\\\/robocop-parking-pits-safety-privacy-jobs\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":553,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\\\/robocop-parking-pits-safety-privacy-jobs\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.myparkingsign.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/11232637155_546f522af1.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"automated parking garages\",\"enforcement\",\"parking enforcement\"],\"articleSection\":[\"News\",\"Parking Tech\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\\\/robocop-parking-pits-safety-privacy-jobs\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.myparkingsign.com/blog\\\/robocop-parking-pits-safety-privacy-jobs\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Robocop of parking pits safety against privacy and jobs - 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