Fair enough. My previous statement was incorrect. Edited above.

I understand the hypothetical case they could be misused but I'm still not aware of any cases they actually were.

>On June 8, 2007, the Shotspotter acoustic gunshot detection and location system recorded two gunshots from the corner of 83rd Avenue and Birch Street in Oakland, California. The first one, at 11:10:22 p.m., was at 8236 Birch Street, and the second one, 24 seconds later at 11:10:46 p.m., was at 1775 83rd Avenue. Those addresses are less than 10 feet apart. The recording of the second shot also captured the voice of Tyrone Lyles, apparently addressing the person who shot him: "Ar, Ar, why are you going to do me like that, Ar."

I am happy shotspotter helped in the prosecution of this person who needlessly killed someone. I realize there could be ways to abuse this for things having nothing to do with gun violence, but you could also say DUI traffic stops or DNA collection could be misued. That doesn't mean they are misused.

Yeah, but the only reason anyone listened to those sections (or was even able to listen to these sections) of tape was because they contained shootings. These systems work on a rolling buffer storage system; they're constantly recording to a buffer that contains the last N minutes of audio and if a triggering event occurs, it gets written out to a file that is reviewed by a person and if it contains a gunshot, that person confirms there was a gunshot (ie that it wasn't a firework or something) and a notification goes out to the relevant police district/precinct/whatever for that area. If there's just people talking but no gunshots, the buffer never writes out and it's overwritten before too long.

Do I have an expectation of privacy in a conversation I have in public?