Dylan Oliver works at The Alliance for Secure AI. He is a native of Hodgdon.

Local governments across America are experimenting with artificial intelligence, and Maine has become a national leader in its own right.

Before our eyes, Maine municipalities are installing AI-powered surveillance cameras to track civilians, while certain police departments are leasing AI cameras from a company named Flock Safety. Flock is facing justified scrutiny for its increasingly omnipresent surveillance tools that gather data in collaboration with federal immigration enforcement. These cameras are currently being used to scan license plates, create digital profiles and even experiment with facial recognition, which may violate Maine law.

Take Sanford, which approved the installation of AI-powered license plate reader cameras made by Flock. On the surface, the cameras may sound helpful. In one case, police used them to recover a stolen car within hours instead of days or months.

But beneath the headlines lies a deeply troubling expansion of government surveillance — one that Maine residents, and anyone who values privacy, should reject. Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or independent, AI surveillance that far exceeds human monitoring is a scary thought.

For decades, we have slowly ceded our personal privacy to a mix of government and corporate forces, and AI has the potential to altogether erase our privacy rights as we know them today.

Don’t believe me? It is important to understand how AI cameras work. In Flock’s case, the cameras scan, log and store every single car that passes by a given location, creating a searchable database of our movements — regardless of whether we are suspected of a crime or not. It’s not too different from the 2002 film “Minority Report”, which first introduced the concept of tracking and punishing “pre-crime.”

Don’t just take my word for it. According to Sanford police, today’s AI technology can also track people by clothing — such as shirts, pants and hats — and not just license plates. This power goes far beyond just “catching criminals” or “keeping Maine safe.” It clearly creeps into the realm of constitutional rights.

Even my neighboring hometown of Houlton is guilty. The town has been using Verkada’s AI-powered surveillance cameras to capture the facial recognition of residents and visitors. Why exactly?

This is a question worth asking over and over again, and Mainers are doing just that. Houlton’s entire legal budget was blown through this year due to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits related to the AI cameras. Access logs list thousands of cases of “Profiles Searched” or “Profile Searched with Details,” meaning that interested parties could be searching for records of people who were previously captured in the surveillance system and assigned a digital profile.

Indeed, Verkada acknowledges that its cameras are equipped with powerful facial recognition software that can match the faces of people caught in new camera footage to images already logged into the system.

Maine’s 2021 facial recognition law prohibits public officials and departments from obtaining, retaining, possessing or accessing a facial surveillance system or information derived from it, except in specific, legally defined circumstances. Yet companies and governments appear to be deploying facial recognition in ways that transcend anything specific or legally defined.

Let’s not forget Old Town, where Placer.ai — an AI tool using aggregated smartphone data — can track the movements of residents and visitors downtown. This includes their place of origin, their final destination, how long they stay and even estimated annual income. Again, I ask: Why exactly do Mainers need AI to track our incomes? Who gave the government permission to do that?

We can all agree that AI creates an environment of unease and skepticism. There is no justification to surveil the state’s residents or visitors en masse. And, if surveillance is justified in very niche situations, that justification needs to be stated publicly and for the record so people can discuss and debate the merits. A shadow surveillance state is simply unacceptable.

Now is the time for Mainers to speak up about AI and contact their elected officials. We must stand up for our constitutional rights — while we still have them.