On two occasions in the past five years, Apple has hosted closed-door conferences for law enforcement agencies around the world , bringing officers together at the tech giant’s headquarters in Cupertino to discuss the best ways to use its products, Forbes has learned.
Dubbed the Global Police Summit , the most recent event was held over three days in October 2023 at Apple Park. It was scheduled to precede the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conference in San Diego that year, according to emails obtained by Forbes through a public records request with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD).
There is a widespread perception that Apple maintains a combative relationship with law enforcement after the company refused to help the FBI hack the iPhone of the shooter in the 2015 San Bernardino terror attacks. But it has since stepped up collaboration with law enforcement through the conference and other meetings with agencies at both its Cupertino headquarters and its Elk Grove campus, as well as a variety of previously unreported projects that help police officers use iPhones, Macs, the Apple Vision Pro and CarPlay , the emails show. Most of those projects have not been publicly announced.
Apple declined to comment.
“I’ve been in law enforcement now for almost 36 years. I’ve never been part of an engagement that was so collaborative,” said John McMahon, deputy chief and CIO of the Los Angeles Police Department.
The fact that Apple has kept its work with law enforcement secret indicates that the company is aware that providing technology for police surveillance operations is inherently contrary to its pro-privacy marketing , said Matthew Guariglia, senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation . “These companies want to have their cake and eat it,” Guariglia told Forbes. “They want to get the reputation that they protect user data, and they will do so at the expense of their relationship with law enforcement, while also recognizing that creating technology for law enforcement is a multi-billion dollar industry.” The United States spends an estimated $100 billion on law enforcement activities each year.
Gary Oldham , who led Apple’s worldwide strategy for public safety and emergency services until August, and led the Global Police Summit, told Forbes that the first event was held in 2019, with subsequent events cancelled due to Covid until the 2023 conference. Up to 50 employees from police departments across seven countries, from Australia to Sweden, attended the events, where Apple held listening sessions with its engineers to discuss app development on the company’s various platforms, and police officers gave presentations on using Apple’s technology.
“This year’s topics will include client agencies sharing their successes, innovations and lessons learned; Apple presentations on new products and features beneficial to law enforcement planned to include CarPlay, collision detection, satellite-based emergency SOS, Vision Pro and more,” read an email from Apple to attendees about the 2023 event.
John McMahon , deputy chief and chief information officer for the Los Angeles Police Department, said the event was one of the most useful police conferences he had attended, as it showed him how agencies around the world were “way ahead of American law enforcement and their use of technology and their capitalization on mobilization .”
“I’ve been in law enforcement for almost 36 years. I’ve never been involved in an event where there was so much collaboration with my colleagues around the world,” McMahon, who also presented at the event last year, told Forbes.
One of the most memorable presentations at the 2023 event came from the New Zealand Police , which explained how it had worked with a local developer to create an iOS app to store and access police information, Oldham explained. Called OnDuty, the app is connected to the National Intelligence Database and makes it easy to search for data such as locations, license plate numbers, and individual crime histories. Other iOS apps used by New Zealand police provide situational awareness, showing officers if there are people of interest frequenting an area or if it is a location where crimes have previously been committed, according to presentation slides provided to Forbes by New Zealand police.
Oldham, a former police officer, said he had grown Apple’s market share in public safety from 10% to 70% in Apple’s target markets around the world. As he noted on his public LinkedIn page: “In several countries, I grew our market share to 80% or more and achieved 100% public safety market share in four countries.”
Apple’s collaboration with law enforcement appears to have been closest with nearby California agencies, according to emails obtained from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. In one email, Oldham said the OCSD, LAPD, San Diego County Sheriff’s Office and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) were all “actively doing great things on our platform.” Between them, the agencies have deployed and tested apps for a variety of Apple products, from the Vision Pro to iPhones to Macs, whether to access surveillance data or for basic communications. Oldham intended to set up meetings with other Southern California agencies to delve deeper into the use of Apple technology across the state’s law enforcement agencies.
As Forbes previously reported, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department has been testing out Apple’s Vision Pro virtual reality headset to create a virtual version of its surveillance data center, which the agency calls its Real-Time Operations Center. Emails show that the agency was interested in using a Vision Pro in March of this year, after learning that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Emergency Operations Bureau had been using the VR tool. An Instagram post from September later showed the LASD using Vision Pro devices to view maps and incident management tools to respond to emergencies.
Apple employee Ritz Sherman , who has been working on government projects for the company since the late 1980s, connected the two agencies, according to emails. Orange County later confirmed to Forbes that it had acquired a Vision Pro to test the technology. The LAPD is also about to start testing the Vision Pro for its surveillance duties, according to public records. “A monitor room and command post can be run with just one pair of glasses,” Deputy Chief McMahon said.
«The entire Apple ecosystem works very well together,» said Dave Fontneau, CIO of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
Police officers have also shown interest in Apple CarPlay, which turns a car’s entertainment dashboard into an iOS display. Emails detail that LAPD, Orange County, and the LASD arranged a meeting with executives from automaker Ford at the AIVP event in October to discuss using CarPlay. Orange County Police CIO Dave Fontneau previously told Forbes that he was considering swapping out all laptops in police cars for Apple CarPlay on the dashboards of police vehicles. “ The whole Apple ecosystem works very well together ,” he said. Oldham said U.S. agencies were interested in emulating a CarPlay rollout by the Western Australian Police Force, where police officers are using Siri to access police data and update their department with incident updates. McMahon said there was also a safety aspect, as metal structures holding laptops in place have injured and killed police officers in traffic collisions.
But Apple’s approach to courting police departments may be changing. In July 2024, Oldham told police customers that he had been unable to secure funding for the 2024 Global Police Summit but hoped to make it a biennial event. A week later, he emailed California police departments again to say he was leaving the company, without giving a reason. Oldham declined to comment on the reasons for his departure from the company.
Police are now hoping Apple will reconsider hosting the summit . «I’m very disappointed that for whatever reason it couldn’t be held again this year,» McMahon said.
Even if Apple cancels the event, police are still determined to increase their use of the company’s tools . Upon hearing of the cancellation of this year’s conference, Fontneau, of Orange County, wrote to Oldham: “This was one of the key events we all look forward to every year,” before joking: “ I guess we’ll be going to the Android event this year .”
