Technological innovations have the potential to make our society safer, yet there is also legitimate concern around issues such as invasions of privacy, inaccuracy, and perpetuation of racial bias. Governments and policing agencies themselves are struggling with how to evaluate and regulate new technology products. As a result, much of the conversation around policing tech is framed as a stark choice between embracing or outright banning.
At the Policing Project, we believe a better approach is to figure out if and how society can benefit from a particular technology while eliminating or minimizing any harm. Guided by our Evaluative Framework, we advocate for the responsible use of technology along three dimensions: legal, ethical, and democratically accountable:
- Legal: Does the technology violate constitutional and other legal principles, such as free exercise of First Amendment liberties, equal protection of the law, and other rights guaranteed by law?
- Ethical: Can the technology be designed and operated in ways that minimize social harms, including overcriminalization and threats to privacy and autonomy?
- Democratically accountable: Has the policing agency been transparent about its use of the technology? Were communities consulted before the technology was adopted?
In partnership with communities, police, government officials, and private companies, we are working to promote a more responsible and democratic conversation around policing tech–one that results in concrete changes and more protection for all.
POLICING TECH EVALUATION FRAMEWORK
New technologies promise to make policing safer and more effective. But there is widespread concern about these technologies, including invasions of privacy, inaccuracy, and perpetuation of racial bias.
Too often, adoption of new policing technology is debated as a matter of being “for” or "against" it. We believe the better approach is to figure out if society can benefit from a particular technology. Then, if there are benefits to be had, the question becomes whether it is possible to minimize or eliminate any harm. (Some harms, like constitutional violations, are impermissible in any degree.) We also believe it is essential that any decision to use technology has democratic legitimacy.
We evaluate policing technologies using our independent framework, stated briefly as:
Potential Benefits. Our analysis begins by asking about benefits. Particularly when use of a technology has social (and hard) costs, it is important to identify the specific problem(s) the technology is meant to address. We do so in the following stages:
- Specify the Problem & the Benefit.
- Evaluate Certainty of the Benefit.
- Evaluate Unintended or Secondary Benefits.
Potential Costs. Only if a technology has identifiable, concrete benefits should one turn to considering potential costs, including social costs. To facilitate this technology-specific evaluation, we evaluate a number of criteria that often arise in the case of policing technologies.
- Transparency.
- Personal Privacy (e.g., data capture, aggregation, mining, retention, ownership, sharing, and security).
- Racial or Other Identity Disparities (both in design of the technology and how it's used).
- Risk of Increased Criminalization.
- Evidentiary & Trial Risk.
- U.S. Constitutional risks (e.g., 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 14th Amendment concerns).
- Other Potential Social Costs (e.g., unique impacts on specific populations, potential for mission creep, historical distrust).
- Are there Less Costly Alternatives?
Operational Concerns. In additional to considering potential costs and benefits, there are several categories of operational concerns that one must always keep in mind thinking through the potential impact of new policing technologies:
- Tactical Impacts.
- Integration Risks.
- Intended use vs. Actual use.
- Policies & Training.