by Michael Dean Thompson
Few of us would not feel violated to learn that our spouse or partner has been digging through our phone. Imagine if they were to use that data to analyze where we’ve been and who we’ve been near, and then, they were to gain access to ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
The use of facial recognition systems was banned by the New Orleans City Council in 2020, only to be overturned in July of 2022 in response to fears of rising crime despite concerns within the affected communities about civil rights, privacy, and accuracy.
Facial recognition systems ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
Over 50 years ago, fear of crime was even then associated in the minds of governing bodies with Black and brown communities. An effort to combat crime based on that fear spurred the creation of software that has since grown to become the predictive policing systems ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
The State of Arizona’s Attorney General, together with the Phoenix Field Office of the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations, has collected more than 145 million records of private financial transactions — and that number is likely still growing. The transactions were collected from companies ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
Through a series of public records requests to the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, Unicorn Riot (a non-profit, media-based organization of journalists) has obtained rare insight into how the police department responsible for George Floyd’s death uses technology to spy on its citizens. In all, they gathered ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
The January 6th Capitol riot illustrates how geofencing warrants are threatening American citizens. As part of the investigations into the events, the FBI served a geofencing warrant to Google that demanded a list of all the devices in or near the Capitol during the attack. An ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
Many courts cases hinge on whether the voice or voices on a recording belong to a specific speaker, such as the defendant or a witness, who is unknown to the listener. Misidentification of a voice can influence juries and lead to disastrous decisions carrying lengthy sentences ...
by Michael Thompson
For years now, cars have allowed us to synch our devices with their onboard computers, giving us hands-free and Wi-Fi access along with a wealth of infotainment options. A user could be forgiven for believing the data is transient, i.e., temporarily stored during use and erased when ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
The Electronic Freedom Foundation (“EFF”), working with journalism students at the University of Nevada, Reno (“UNR”), created the Atlas of Surveillance as a pilot from counties along the U.S. border with Mexico in 2019. Its task was to track how the police use technology for surveillance. ...
by Michael Dean Thompson
The New York Police Department (“NYPD”) has announced its decision to join Ring Neighbors, a neighborhood watch system leveraging doorbell video sharing and collaboration. The announcement heralds a dramatic expansion into the digital arena of an already technologically sophisticated police force. Together with more than 2,000 ...
