An teemingness of reportage has confirm that you ’re not paranoid , Minority Report was nonfiction , andface paintisn’t just an artwork project . We hear about how practice of law enforcement can rival our faces with exposure scratch from oursocial medium profilesand monitor us through neighbors’doorbells . The near - hebdomadal updates transmit a shiver down our pricker , and we file them away along with too many instance to rattle off in a web log Emily Post . normally , it ’s up to privacy advocates to track this changeless surveillance take the violations to court . But now , the Electronic Frontier Foundation has produced aneasily sink in national mapof implemented surveillance tools — although , the EFF disclaim in thedescription , the map is only the “ tip of the iceberg . ”
The map of 5,300 data point shows 12 character of surveillance deployed by law enforcement , including licence plate readers , facial recognition , cell - site simulators , drones , and Amazon ’s Ring picture - sharing partnership with local law enforcement . The EFF enlisted hundreds of news media bookman and researchers whoseexpansive searchencompasses diarist ’ and nonprofits ’ public datasets , government document , vendor publication , word article , and minutes from meetings . On the map , the U.S. looks like the situation of a atrocious infestation .
The EFF notes that you should take the mathematical function with a texture of salt . “ With K of datum points to go through , ” reads themethodology pageboy , “ it is impossible to exhaustively fact - check each one , despite the multiple reviews by students and stave . ” It says that facial realization in particular can be hard to get over , as local governments often set forth and blockade programs involving it abruptly . It also notes that research is limited to information made available by government agencies and reportage , which can be flawed . The map is also not a consummate word-painting of every location where one might perchance be surveilled at all time ; instead , it shows jurisdictions where these technologies are in habit .
Image: Atlas of Surveillance (Other)
We can reasonably accept that the data reflects only a smattering of information that police departments prefer stash until local governance pry it from them . The mathematical function shows surprisingly few data points in Manhattan and Brooklyn , for example , which may switch in the coming class as New York Cityimplementsa raw criterion that finally obliges the NYPD to share basic data about surveillance technology . And most State have few or no laws governing the usance and oversight offacial recognition(thoughnumerouscitieshavebannedit ) , to the extent thatMicrosoft , IBM , and Amazonhave said that they ’ll block selling face acknowledgment tech to law enforcement until it ’s best regulated ( or untila year is up , whichever come first ) .
Interestingly , the map divulge that different areas prefer different flavors of surveillance . Ring cameras seem to be uber - popular in the suburban area of Chicago and Dallas ; licence scale readers are grownup in urban areas ; rural areas seem to favor drone .
There may be gaps to fill ; some thing are just airy or impossible to hound down . For example , the data shows only a smattering of contract bridge with Clearview AI , the atomic number 79 medallist for trespassing face recognition technical school , mostly pieced together from news program reports , although theNew York Timeshas reported that more than 600 police force enforcement agencies started using it in 2019 . EFF senior fact-finding researcher David Maass told Gizmodo that many agency no longer employ Clearview AI ’s highly controversial database or used it on a suddenly - survive visitation basis , and the project concenter only on agencies that had publicly acknowledged that they had used the technology or had melt down a substantial number of searches through the organization over the retiring year .
If you ’d like to see another dot on the single-valued function , you canvolunteerto help .
Updated : 2025-04-26 , 5:34 p.m. ET : This Emily Post has been updated with extra comment from EFF aged investigative researcher David Maass , and to slay a reference to cell - site simulators along the Texas border .
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