Gloucester County staff outline AI use and Placer location analytics; supervisors press for privacy, cost and contract details

Gloucester County staff presented the county’s current and planned uses of artificial intelligence (AI) during the Board of Supervisors meeting on Feb. 4, 2025, outlining both general AI tools such as ChatGPT and specific services the county is piloting, including Placer, a location-analytics vendor that aggregates mobile-device movement data to estimate visitors and patterns.

The presentation, led by county information-technology staff and department directors, described safeguards the county is using and proposing — onboarding and training, monthly review meetings, and a policy approved by the county attorney — while staff acknowledged limits and risks including hallucinations, biased outputs and the presence of third-party data collectors. Supervisors repeatedly asked how Placer obtains data, whether children or sensitive sites can be identified, how accurate the counts are, and how much the subscription costs.

Why it matters: county staff said the tools provide faster, broader data than legacy methods and help with event planning, tourism marketing, grants and traffic planning. Critics said the data collection is largely out of residents’ control and pressed for transparency on data sources, partner lists, contract language and whether the county should continue the subscription.

Britton Hogg, a software analyst, gave the technical overview, saying, “AI is already here whether we want it or not,” and described general AI services county staff have experimented with, including ChatGPT, OpenAI’s Operator and Deep…