Technology

Structured decision-making and technology

The Center is exploring the use of risk assessment instruments, algorithmic tools, and artificial intelligence in the criminal legal system and other systems that govern people's lives.

These tools have been designed, deployed, and advanced as mechanisms to improve decision-making, but carry with them the potential to exacerbate and reify the racial bias that already infects that systems of governance. The Center convenes researchers, advocates, and national leaders on algorithmic tools and technologies and collaborates with social justice and technology focused organizations to produce reports, tool kits, and scholarship to more fully understand the impact that these tools have on communities of color.

As new insights emerge, we engage in advocacy at the local and national level to ensure decision-makers are armed with the right information to make certain that if and when tools are deployed, they are used to reduce, rather than exacerbate, racial harm and inequality. Some examples of the Center's work in this space includes:

• Report by Co-Faculty Director Vincent Southerland: The Master's Tools and a Mission: Using Community Control and Oversight Laws to Resist and Abolish Police Surveillance Technology
• The Use of Pretrial "Risk Assessment" Instruments: A Shared Statement of Civil Rights Concerns
• Membership on the New York City Automated Decision Systems Task Force
• Litigating Algorithms 2018 and 2019
• Report with ACLU: What Does Fairness Look Like? Conversations on Race, Risk Assessment Tools, and Pretrial Justice

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Technology and Racial Justice Collaborative Quarterly Newsletter 

We are pleased to announce the publication of the first quarterly newsletter of the Technology and Racial Justice Collaborative, a new project of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law. TRJC's quarterly newsletter provides feature articles, legislative updates, and news about advocacy addressing algorithmic bias and surveillance in the criminal legal system. Read the first installment of the newsletter here!

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Training for Beginners

In this training, co-sponsored by The Center on Race, Inequality and the Law and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, learn the ins and outs of how to initiate and navigate records requests from the federal government using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Race and Technology News Updates

Court Cases

• Meta to settle Texas lawsuit over Facebook facial recognition data, Reuters (6/4/24) 

City and State Updates

• These Wrongly Arrested Black Men Say a California Bill Would Let Police Misuse Face Recognition, The Markup (6/12/24) 

• Rhode Island House Passes Weak "Privacy" Laws, EPIC (6/11/24) 

• Alternatives to ShotSpotter draw concern, Axios Seattle (6/11/24)

• NYC again considers banning biometric tech for businesses, residential buildings, Statescoop (6/11/24) 

• Facial-recognition technology poses threat to civil liberties, Ann Arbor declares, MLive (6/10/24) 

• Lawmakers look to limit use of facial recognition technology, NY 1 (6/10/24) 

• Harrell Drops ShotSpotter from Surveillance Expansion, but Privacy Concerns Remain, The Urbanist (6/7/24) 

• Legislators: Make DNA sampling like fingerprints, Bucks County Herlad (6/6/24) 

• New York Spends $225 Million on Its Own "Cop City" -- to Make the Whole city Run on Cops, The Intercept (6/5/24) 

• New Jersey Bill Seeks to Ban Facial Recognition Security by Businesses, Shore News network (6/4/24) 

• Lower Bucks County Lawmakers, Law Enforcement Advocate for Expanded DNA Collection, Levittown Now (6/3/24) 

• ACLU-WA Comment on Proposal to Deploy CCTV Cameras, Real-Time Crime Center Software and Automated License Plate Reader Systems in Seattle Neighborhoods, ACLU Washington (5/31/24) 

• What you should know about Utah's newest privacy laws, The University of Utah (5/31/24) 

• Houston mayor calls gunshot detection tech a 'gimmick,' plans to end ShotSpotter contract, Statescoop (5/30/24) 

• The Alaska Supreme Court Takes Aerial Surveillance's Threat to Privacy Seriously, Other Courts Should Too, EFF (5/29/24) 

Federal Updates

• The FISA Expansion Turning Cable Installers Into Spies Cannot Stand, Brennan Center (6/5/24) 

• EPIC Pushes NIST to Focus its Approach to Generative AI Risks Around Who and How AI Harms, EPIC (6/4/24) 

• The Nuts and Bolts of Enforcing AI Guardrails, Brennan Center (5/30/24)

• Could be 25 years before TSA gets facial recognition in all US airports, Biometric Update (5/29/24) 

General News Updates

• TJ Maxx and Marshalls workers are wearing police-like body cameras | Here's how it's going, ABC 7 (6/6/24) 

• The Age of the Drone Police Is Here, Wired (6/5/24)

• 'I was misidentified by facial recognition tech,' BBC (5/25/24) 

Global Updates

• The UN Cybercrime Draft Convention Remains Too Flawed to Adopt, EFF (6/7/24) 

• Security, Surveillance, and Government Overreach - the United States set the Path but Canada Shouldn't Follow It, EFF (6/6/24)

• EU Council Presidency's Last-Ditch Effort for Mass Scanning Must Be Rejected, EFF (6/4/24) 

• Virtual reality training scenarios put police officers in shoes of people having their worst day, Burnaby Now (6/2/24) 

People and Events to Note

• FOIA 101: Tips and Tricks to Make You a Transparency Master | MuckRock

• Report: SELLING SURVEILLANCE: FACT VS. AD FICTION | S.T.O.P. 

• Report: People on Electronic Monitoring | Vera Institute of Justice 

• Upcoming Event: TAKE BACK TECH II | Mijuente, Media Justice 

• Upcoming Event: Law Enforcement Use of Predictive Policing Approaches: A Workshop | National Academies of Sciences | June 24-25

Archive of Past Updates