10. Police Surveillance

What are the 2 opposite concerns that shape people’s thoughts about police surveillance?

• fear of victimization

• fear of totalitarian law enforcement

What does it mean for police to be knowledge workers?

• information is essential to their profession, as they gather, produce, process, and share information

• information enables policy to perform day-to-day tasks (surveillance, information gathering) and higher-level functions (preventing crime, enforcing laws)

• information is a resource and increases capacity for action (criminal detection, prevention, maintaining public safety)

What are 3 important trends from the history of police surveillance?

• has shifted from monitoring defined areas to “knowing” specific individuals + groups

• tech advancements have greatly increased the methods and scale of police surveillance (from physical observation to dataveillance)

• long history of collecting and using information for criminal detection, prevention, and maintaining public safety

What are 2 tactics of police surveillance?

• snitching (a form of information gathering from individuals about offenders + criminal groups)

• undercover policing (using deceit to collect information on criminal activity)

• both utilize human sources to monitor + investigate potential crimes

What are 3 modes of technological police surveillance?

• dataveillance

• integrated data systems (accessing databases of biometrics + location data)

• video surveillance (CCTV, facial recognition)

What is dataveillance?

• the systematic monitoring of actions + communications using information technology

How do police use dataveillance?

• police collect, store, sort, and analyze digital clues from integrated sources and various databases to identify suspects and predict crime

• knowledge work that helps police in crime detection, prevention, and maintaining public safety

What does Ferguson (2017) say about big data and police?

• big data enables a new era of criminal surveillance, where police increasingly collect + analyze vast digital datasets to predict + prevent crime

• technology has transformed police surveillance by enabling the collection + analysis of diverse data through integrated systems, shifting from area monitoring to individual “knowing”

How does the Edmonton Police’s OICC align with Ferguson’s (2017) big data and policing?

• the Edmonton Police’s OICC (Operations and Intelligence Command Centre) is a central intelligence hub for identifying suspects + predicting crime locations

• integrates + analyzes data to proactively address crime

What are the implications of dataveillance in policing?

• dataveillance enables police to do real-time surveillance through collecting + analyzing digital data

• shifts police focus towards crime prediction based on correlations (efficiency over causation)

• may potentially lead to automated suspicion and impact fairness

What is a technological fix?

• the belief that technology can solve social problems

How does the concept of a technological fix relate to Ferguson’s (2017) police use of surveillance technology?

• police are drawn to data technology to fix issues like distrust

• Ferguson cautions against the hype of surveillance technology, as it has limited proof of effectiveness and prediction tools can embed biases

• technology isn’t a silver bullet for crime, and overreliance can create legal shadows and constitutional gaps, potentially leading to automated suspicion

According to the guest lecturer, what are the 3 components of the surveillance triangle for police?

• public safety scope (systematic collection of info for community safety + well-being)

• actors in surveillance (conducted by state institutions, private companies, individuals)

• neutrality and context (surveillance is neutral and its implication depend on context + intent)

According to the guest lecturer, what are 4 subcategories and functions of AI?

• machine learning (ie. computer science that learns from existing data to make decisions; eg. predictive analytics)

• natural language processing (narrow AI, ingesting + generating human language; eg. bodycam translation)

• computer vision (general AI, analyzing visual data; eg. facial recognition)

• robotics (super-intelligent AI, autonomous machine tasking)

According to the guest lecturer, what are 5 ways police are implementing AI technologies into their surveillance practices?

• enhanced video surveillance and analytics (analyze live CCTV and body camera feeds in real-time)

• predictive policing (algorithms analyze historical crime data to forecast potential crime hotspots + trends)

• mass data processing (manage + process vast amounts of data)

• automated reporting and transcription (NLP tools can automatically transcribe audio from body cameras)

• drone use (AI-powered drones can be deployed as first responders)

According to the guest lecturer, what are the 7 core principles guiding Peel Police on their adoption of AI-driven tools?

• transparency, accountability, privacy, security, human rights, efficiency, and CSWB (Community Safety and Wellbeing)

According to the guest lecturer, what are the 3 types of police intelligence?

• strategic intelligence (guides big-picture decisions, like overall risk management)

• operational intelligence (focuses on active threats and day-to-day activities)

• tactical intelligence (provides data on attacker techniques for immediate defense)

According to the guest lecturer, what are the similarities and differences between criminal profiling and racial profiling in surveillance?

• both involve assigning criminality to a person/group based on suspicions of criminal behaviour

• racial profiling is an illegal form of racial discrimination that assigns criminality based on irrelevant factors

• criminal profiling assigns criminality based on reasonable suspicion of crime

What is the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC)?

• provides info on people, vehicles, firearms, and other property

• maintained by the RCMP and accessible to Canadian police services

• provides 4 types of information

What are 4 types of information the CPIC provides police?

• identification (criminal records, fingerprints, etc.)

• investigative (active investigations, missing persons, etc.)

• intelligence (criminal intelligence + surveillance info across Canada)

• ancillary (firearm registry data, registry for missing person with Alzheimer’s, etc.)

What is a warrant?

• issued by a judge, authorizes police to conduct searches + seizures

• grants legal authority to gather information, impacting expectations of privacy

What is electronic surveillance?

• the installation + monitoring of authorized real-time data

• includes phone interceptions, Internet communication interceptions, electronic tracking devices, video surveillance, etc.

What are the conditions police need to meet in order to get judicial authorization to conduct more invasive forms of observation?

• police need to provide reasonable grounds to believe an offense occurred, data is possessed, and the data will provide evidence