2024 Contract Signed with Placer.ai, a California-Based Artificial Intelligence Firm, for $15,000 Annually for “Economic Development” Purposes
by Jennifer Williams
Recently, local Miami County business owners were shocked to discover that the Miami County Economic Development Department was using tracking software to identify where customers shopped before coming to a particular business, and where they stopped after – based on artificial intelligence software that pings cell phone locations to compile a database for “marketing purposes.”
Placer.ai is a “Location intelligence and foot traffic data software” company, based out of California and Israel, and financially backed by major national real estate investors.
An editorial on TheRealDeal.com contains this photo below and states, “Fueled by proprietary location data blended with strategic data partnerships.”
After the Louisburg City Council was recently presented with information regarding the ai technology, Louisburg City Councilmember, Tiffany Ellison, requested information regarding the program through a Kansas Open Records Act Request, where it was revealed that the Miami County Economic Development Council, a 501(c)6 was notified in mid-2023 that in order to qualify for an upcoming Patterson Family Foundation Rural Development Grant, they would need to be a 501(c)3.
County officials worked with them to get this designation, so that they could apply for a $61,500 grant from the Patterson Family Foundation, which was used to help fund the$15,000 annual AI software license lease.
It was in this KORA request that the grant application and the Placer.ai contract, along with county meeting outlines mentioning the grant and the marketing program, were provided. A copy of that KORA is available here.
Placer.ai Contract Language
Although the contract signed for the County by the Economic Development Director, Janet McRae, says that individually-identifying data is not “shared,” it doesn’t mean it’s not “gathered.”
In fact, the first page of the contract states that actionable insights include:
- accurate foot traffic counts and dwell time
- True Trade Areas displaying frequent-visitors-density by home and work locations
- Customers’ demographics, interests, and time spent at relevant locations
- Where customers are coming from and going to, and the routes they take
- Benchmarking of Foot Traffic, Market Share, Audiences, and other key metrics
Access to STI Demographics Bundle that includes: spending patterns, workplace, Mosaic segmentation, CrimeRisk, and more
It also mentions Advanced Demographics and Psychographics are generated using the Input Datasets from the data vendors.
What is Psychographics? The qualitative methodology of studying consumers based on psychological characteristics and traits; such as values, desires, goals, interests and lifestyle choices.
This foreign company is building a database on our residents, that can quickly combine with biometric tracking (fingerprint mapping, facial recognition, and retina scans) that can be used to identify individuals, their goals, and their lifestyle choices. Science Fiction meets reality. Welcome to the surveillance state and the creation of your transhuman self.
Did Miami County residents authorize their government to track their movements and psychological characteristics for marketing purposes, or for any purpose, for that matter?
Shouldn’t a citizen have the right to turn on their map software to navigate freely to a location, without the software selling their data to a third-party foreign party, who then resells their information to the citizen’s government, which tracks their movements, shopping habits, values and lifestyle choices?
Had our forefathers known of the computers and technology (and license-plate scanning traffic cameras) to come, would they have included protections from this privacy invasion under the 4th Amendment?
Is this already a 4th Amendment violation?
Even sensitive, private healthcare data is protected by HIPAA.
Are our psychological characteristics, goals, interests, and physical movement throughout our day any less valuable or sacred?
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Fourth Amendment:
Did the Miami County Commissioners Authorize this?
The contract with Placer.ai was signed by Economic Development Director, Janet McRae, on December 12, 2023.
At the January 17, 2024 Board of County Commission Study Session, the agenda packet included a reference to “staff has been coordinating with Placer AI for implementation of their services in January.”
It is unclear how much discussion that item received; since the study sessions are not livestreamed or recorded.
The Miami County Republic reported on the Patterson Family Foundation Grant on February 7th, but nothing was mentioned about the AI component there either.
Did the Greater Miami County Economic Development Corporation know about the tracking abilities?
For the December 2023 Economic Development report to the Commissioners, the Greater Miami County Economic Development Corporation meeting recap mentioned the Development Corporation board authorized County staff (Janet McRae) to implement the program as outlined in the application, should the Patterson Family Foundation grant be approved.
Note: in the grant application, there was a mention of Placer.ai but only in reference to filling job positions and working with MARC’s employment software Lightcast. There was never a mention of tracking the people; although that data was provided to area business owners and was referenced in the actual Placer.ai contract.
Even the Patterson Family Foundation Grant mentions the grant is to be used for “programs that support your community’s workforce needs.” Hence, why the grant language focused the ai usage around “workforce” needs without ever mentioning the tracking software of shopping habits, demographics, crime, and private information on citizens.
Miami County Administor’s Role
According to Janet McRae in the cover letter of the KORA request, “Because the county’s share of the cost was within the county administrator’s authority, no formal commission action was required.
It is clear from her comment that the County Administrator, Shane Krull, authorized the purchase, before the January announcement of the program to County commissioners, because he authorized the payment of the County’s share, beyond what the grant covered, in December 2023.
This comment is concerning that an item of such grave importance is swept under the rug because “part of the cost was covered by a grant, and the remaining amount was within County Administrator Shane Krull’s authority to purchase without commission approval.”
Above is the Patterson Family Foundation Rural Workforce Development Grant budget, where it appears the Placer.ai program costs a total of $21,160; however, the contract below references a $15,000 annual fee.
How Much Authority Do County Staff Have Outside of the People’s Elected Representation?
This type of infiltration into residents’ lives should not fall into the hands of County staff, outside of the approval of elected officials.
What’s further concerning is that less than a month ago, the McRae-Krull duo was confronted by County Commissioners regarding the Soros-Funded, Georgia Corporation, Welcoming America that had made its way onto the Miami County website by Janet McRae, unbeknownst to residents or the Commissioners.
The verbiage stated “The goal is to develop a five year strategic plan to make Kansas City a “certified” welcoming city through the Welcoming America organization, in addition to making Kansas City more inviting to all.”
Commissioner Rob Roberts claimed that Shane Krull stated the item had been on the website since 2021, which is shown below on the old County website.
Who authorized Welcoming America? Evidently not the Commissioners, because they made them take the item off the website. However, just because it’s not advertised does not mean it’s not part of the culture and ideology being pushed on Miami County residents, from KCMO (and from Johnson County officials) through the Miami County Economic Development Director and Miami County Administrator via their roles and affiliations with those Kansas City organizations – such as the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, who is a paying member of Welcoming America.
Why are our elected officials continually allowing our county staff to make rogue decisions for the future of our County, outside of the direction of the majority of our voters, and with no disciplinary action?
This is another example of how the “regionalism” culture being brought into the County by “staff” is out of alignment with the values of the County residents, but is being approved by the Commissioners.
This topic of “regionalism” will be discussed further in part 2.
Who Introduced the AI Software to Janet McRae?
As for the Placer.ai Artificial Intelligence tracking software, it is unknown at this time who introduced this program to Janet McRae, but it is being promoted through the area Chambers of Commerce, so it’s possible it was also introduced by the larger Greater Kansas City Chamber, just as Welcoming America was.
The VP of Strategy & Programs for the Patterson Family Foundation is also the Vice President at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, and cities across the country have their Chambers promoting the software too.
https://www.kctv5.com/2023/08/29/missouri-town-plans-use-ai-attract-keep-tourists/
One thing is for certain: County residents are paying for the privacy invasion via taxes that pay the salary of Janet McRae and her staff. In the grant application, she mentions the future costs are expected to be built into future Miami County Economic Development Department budgets.
Just last week, an existing staff position was posted for the Economic Development department. The job includes data collection and working with the County Administrator on digital marketing campaigns.
Is this what Miami County economic development has succumbed to – using taxpayer’s hard-earned money to track the residents in order to identify their habits so the County (and out-of-state corporations) can “market” to them through the local Chambers of Commerce, while continually inviting Mid-America Regional Council, the Kansas City Chamber, and other “regional partners and stakeholders” into all aspects of our County business and our lives?
Do the Chambers of Commerce Agendas Align with Miami County Values and Visions and Are They Pushing this in Your City?
Another occurrence of Chamber involvement is mentioned in the Patterson Family Foundation grant application where the Louisburg Chamber’s president, David Alexander, is listed in the grant application as the one who was awarded the contract to promote the social media campaign for the grant goals.
The Louisburg Chamber website is concerning, with the continual mention of the phrase “progressive thinking.”
Definitions from Oxford Languages
- (of a group, person, or idea) favoring or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas.
- happening or developing gradually or in stages; proceeding step by step.”a progressive decline in popularity”
noun
- a person advocating or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas.” People tend to present themselves either as progressives or traditionalists on this issue”
Are we seeing these “progressive” ideologies being forced on us through the intrusive tracking, data-gathering, and marketing campaign of the Chamber and the Economic Development Department?
Miami Countians are not asking for social reform, or new, liberal ideas. They are not asking for an artificial intelligence program to gather their patterns and habits or create social profiles on their behaviors, habits, and lifestyle choices. They are not asking for this invasion of their privacy!
No matter how “safe and secure” we are told these technological systems are, we know better.
Follow the Money
A tech expert on Hacker News claimed, “Placer is able to track cell phones that have an app installed that uses their SDK. They currently have their SDK in over 500 mobile apps. The data is anonymized, but it would probably shock people how much information I can get from this system. I just pick a location and I can see how many people walked into that location over any time span in the past 4 years, where they live, how much money they make, where else they like to shop, etc. I work in commercial real estate, BTW. We use this software to analyze retail properties.”
Interestingly enough, some of the major venture capitalists behind the company’s $100 million recent investments are major national real estate investors as mentioned on the Placer.ai blog post.
If you look below at some of these names, Fifth Wall Ventures, WndrCO, MMC Technology Ventures LLC and others – they are nationwide commercial real estate investment companies that are only going to continue to drive the cost of our properties higher for our residents!
Miami County is giving access to and building the database for the software company
“A list of almost 90 tourism sites were provided to them for integration into their data services”
January 17, 2024 Miami County Commissioner Study Session
Development vs Taxes
As residents are struggling to afford to stay in their homes, we are paying nationwide investors to have access to our private data, so that they can use our private data to infiltrate and capitalize on our county by buying up our real estate and increasing our property values, while promoting their vision of our future.
With this growth comes the need for more infrastructure, which means more taxes on the backs of the citizens, and higher property values that prohibit our children from being able to afford to live in our communities as they go out on their own and start their own families.
This is in direct contrast to what the role of the Economic Development Director in a rural county is supposed to be, especially when the residents have continually asked to be left alone and kept separate from Kansas City and other big city and globalist ideologies.
County officials always pin “development” against “lower taxes” but with growth comes the need for more infrastructure and more schools, which raise the budget and the size of the government required to manage the growth. The County will never be able to solve the problem of “lower taxes” as long as the school boards are collecting the majority of our taxes, and the State is setting the rules for appraisals!
The people want rural values and smaller government, and they deserve staff and elected officials who honor their voices!
Stay tuned
Part 2: Government’s Regionalism Goals vs Miami County Residents’ Desire for Protection of Rural Character and Values
Part 3, Identifying how these ai biometric transhumanism agendas are also taking hold inside our classrooms, using our children to build their systems.
What if we all turn the tracking off on our phones?
Unbelievable, thanks for the information.
Tracking of citizens- interesting, right!? When the movie 2000 Mules came out, it was poo pooed as ” there is no way to pin point locations by cell phone”, yet it appears that there IS such technology for sale to Governments.
Surveillance State is a real thing! Some how I feel the need to leave my cell phone home more and more.