Larry Ellison is a man who doesn't do "subtle." When the Oracle co-founder and current CTO took the stage at a financial analyst meeting in late 2024, he didn't just talk about cloud credits or database latency. He painted a picture of a world where every single second of a police officer's shift—and by extension, the public they interact with—is recorded, analyzed, and filed away by an artificial intelligence that never blinks.
"Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on," Ellison said. It’s a line that sounds like it was ripped from a discarded draft of 1984, but for Ellison, it’s just the logical conclusion of the tech stack he’s been building for half a century. Honestly, if you've followed his career, this shouldn't surprise you. This is the same guy who once said NSA surveillance was "essential" to prevent terrorism. He’s always been a "safety over total privacy" kind of guy.
But 2026 is a different beast. We aren't just talking about grainy CCTV cameras anymore. We're talking about Larry Ellison AI surveillance—a deep integration of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), autonomous drones, and body cams that literally cannot be turned off.
The Panopticon in a Police Vest
The core of Ellison's vision revolves around the "always-on" body camera. In the current setup used by most departments, an officer chooses when to hit record. There’s a buffer, sure, but the human is the gatekeeper. Ellison wants to kill that gatekeeper. Under his plan, cameras are tethered to the Oracle cloud 24/7.
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Think about that for a second.
Even if an officer goes on a lunch break or uses the restroom, the feed keeps rolling. Ellison mentioned that while you could "request privacy" for a bathroom break, the footage is still recorded and stored. It's just "locked" unless a court order demands it. It’s basically a digital vault where the key is held by a judge, but the camera never actually stops seeing.
Why the sudden push?
It’s not just about "being a good guy." It’s about data.
- Real-time Oversight: AI monitors the live feed for "anomalies"—basically code for misconduct or dangerous escalations.
- Training the Beast: Every hour of footage fed into Oracle's servers makes their machine-learning models better at predicting human behavior.
- Drone Integration: Why have a high-speed car chase that might kill a bystander? Just have a drone pop out and follow the suspect. Ellison thinks car chases are a relic of the past.
Is This "Digital Totalitarianism" or Just Safety?
Critics aren't exactly thrilled. The phrase "digital totalitarianism" gets thrown around a lot in Reddit threads and privacy advocacy circles. When you have a billionaire who owns an entire Hawaiian island telling you that you’ll be on your "best behavior" because he’s watching, it’s gonna rub people the wrong way.
The comparison to China’s "Sharp Eyes" campaign is inevitable. That system uses "one person, one file" technology to sort data on residents across rural and urban areas. Ellison’s pitch sounds remarkably similar, even if he wraps it in the flag of "public safety" and "officer accountability."
The Nuance of the "Body Cam" Argument
To be fair, many civil rights groups want better police oversight. They want the footage to exist when things go wrong. The rub is who owns the data and who watches the watcher. If a private corporation like Oracle manages the "supervision" of the state's police force, the line between government and private industry doesn't just get blurry—it disappears.
The Tech Under the Hood: Oracle 26ai
You can't talk about Larry Ellison AI surveillance without talking about the hardware. Or rather, the software running on the hardware. Oracle’s latest database releases, like the 23ai and the upcoming 26ai features, are designed specifically for "ubiquitous search" and "fast ingest."
Basically, it means the database is finally fast enough to handle millions of simultaneous video streams without breaking a sweat. It’s not just storing files; it’s "vectorizing" them. This allows the AI to search through video footage as easily as you’d search a PDF for a specific word.
"I feel like I'm living in a science fiction movie," Ellison said.
He’s right. But for most of us, the question is whether it's a utopia or a dystopia. For Ellison, the answer is clearly the former. He sees a world where schools are "absolutely locked down" by AI cameras to prevent shootings, and where forest fires are spotted by autonomous drones before they spread. It’s a very pragmatic, very engineering-heavy view of the world.
What This Means for You Right Now
We aren't quite at the "drones over every street corner" phase yet, but the infrastructure is being laid. Oracle is currently one of the biggest players in the "Smart City" space. They provide the backend for everything from digital IDs (the "Britcard" in the UK is a frequent talking point) to licensing and permitting.
If you live in a major metro area, your data is likely already touching an Oracle server. The surveillance aspect is just the next layer.
Actionable Steps for the Privacy-Conscious
If the idea of Larry Ellison’s AI watching your "best behavior" makes you itchy, you can’t just opt-out of society. But you can change how you interact with the grid.
- Support Privacy Legislation: Look into groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). They are the ones actually fighting the legal battles over who owns body cam footage.
- Audit Your Local PD: Find out what tech your local police department is buying. Many departments have public records of their contracts with companies like Oracle, Axon, or Palantir.
- Digital Hygiene: If you're worried about "ubiquitous search," start using privacy-focused tools (ProtonMail, Signal, etc.) to at least limit the amount of non-visual data available to be "vectorized."
- Demand Transparency: If your city is moving toward a "Smart City" model, attend the town halls. Ask where the video data is stored and who has the "delete" button. (Spoiler: Usually, nobody has the delete button).
The reality is that Larry Ellison is betting billions that we’ll trade a slice of our privacy for a perceived increase in safety. He’s usually pretty good at winning his bets. Whether we want to live in the world he’s building is a conversation we should probably have before the drones start circling.