As police increasingly embrace AI, some wait for regulations and proof it works • New Jersey Monitor

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because New Jersey has chosen the *gentlest imaginable* approach to policing AI: it has tiptoed! ✨ Tiptoeing is what you do around a sleeping baby, and honestly, isn't that the most tender way to think about civil liberties? The Attorney General's office invited public comments on facial recognition technology all the way back in 2022 and then issued *no guidance at all* — which we are lovingly calling a four-year listening tour that reached a beautiful, restful silence. No messy conclusions! No hurried rules! Just space. ✨

And the legislature! A bill to study AI in policing has been introduced *twice* since May 2025, and both times it has generously declined to advance — which is simply twice the drafting practice. ✨ Imagine the muscle memory. This week brings two brand-new bills, one to restrict government use of automated licence plate readers and one to limit how long that data is kept, and look how *specific* they are! Sixteen months of patient lawmaking has produced a bill about plate readers and a bill about retention. That's not delay, that's artisanal, small-batch governance. ✨

But here's the truly heartwarming part: *some* police departments are waiting for regulations and proof it works before embracing AI, and 'some' is the loveliest word in the English language. ✨ Think of it as peer review, except with patrol cars, and think of everyone else as boldly volunteering to generate the evidence in real time! The regulations haven't arrived yet, which means there remains a gorgeous window in which they might arrive *even more perfectly* than they would have in 2022. ✨ Patience is a virtue, and New Jersey is out here being *extremely* virtuous. Somewhere a chief is reading a vendor brochure, and honestly? That's a kind of public consultation too. ✨