Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson announces the city is terminating its contract with ShotSpotter, the controversial gunshot detection technology company, bringing to an end one of the largest and longest-running deployments of acoustic surveillance in American policing. The contract will expire on …
The reliability and accuracy of ShotSpotter’s gunshot detection technology face a major crisis in August 2021 as the Chicago Office of Inspector General releases a damning report on the system’s effectiveness, while the Michael Williams case exposes evidence that ShotSpotter analysts …
ShotSpotterMichael WilliamsChicago Police Departmentsurveillancetechnologypoliceaicivil-rights+1 more
PredPol, the controversial predictive policing software company, rebrands itself as Geolitica in 2021 as criticism of algorithmic bias in law enforcement intensifies. The rebrand represents an attempt to distance the company from growing scrutiny of predictive policing’s discriminatory impacts …
ShotSpotter’s acoustic gunshot detection system undergoes major expansion across the United States during 2015, with significant deployments in New York City and Sacramento representing the technology’s growing adoption by major metropolitan police departments.
PredPol’s predictive policing software reaches widespread adoption across the United States, with almost 60 police departments using the technology by early 2015. Major cities including Los Angeles, Atlanta, and numerous smaller jurisdictions have implemented the algorithmic crime prediction …
The New Orleans Police Department launches a secretive predictive policing program in partnership with Palantir Technologies, a data-mining firm founded with seed money from the CIA’s venture capital arm In-Q-Tel. The program operates without public knowledge or oversight, escaping scrutiny …
NOPDPalantir TechnologiesMitch LandrieuPeter Thielsurveillancetechnologypoliceaicivil-rights+1 more
PredPol, a predictive policing software company, is founded in Santa Cruz, California by UCLA Professor of Anthropology Jeff Brantingham and mathematician George Mohler. The company emerges from research begun in 2010 when Brantingham recruited UCLA mathematicians to develop algorithms for …
George MohlerJeff Brantinghamsurveillancetechnologyaipolice
Amazon Implements Automated Worker Surveillance and Tracking System
Beginning around 2012, Amazon deployed comprehensive automated surveillance systems in its warehouses that tracked worker productivity per second through handheld scanners, creating what labor advocates described as algorithmic …
Jeff BezosAmazonworker exploitationsurveillancecorporate accountabilitytechnologyamazon
President George W. Bush signed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) into law, making sweeping reforms to the nation’s voting process following controversies in the 2000 presidential election. HAVA mandated provisional ballots for voters whose eligibility is questioned, allowing approximately 1.9 …
George W. BushElection Assistance Commissionelection manipulationvoter suppressiontechnologyfederal legislation
IBM Chairman Thomas J. Watson receives the Merit Cross of the German Eagle with Star from Adolf Hitler in June 1937 while serving as President of the International Chamber of Commerce, becoming the first American honored by Hitler with this special award created to “honor foreign nationals who …
Thomas J. WatsonAdolf HitlerIBMDeutsche Hollerith Maschinen GmbH (Dehomag)Nazi Germanycorporate-collaborationnazismtechnologyholocaustibm