Street-Level Surveillance
Who makes America's police surveillance tech, who buys it, and where the data goes. An interactive investigation of the supply chain behind street-level surveillance, built on the Atlas of Surveillance dataset.
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Investigation
Method
Police departments across the US have adopted camera networks, facial recognition, license plate readers, and drones in the name of safety. Used indiscriminately, the same tools blur the line between security and oppression in public space. We wanted to see the whole system at once: which technologies are deployed where, who manufactures them, and where the data ends up.
Built in Laura Kurgan's Conflict Urbanism studio at Columbia GSAPP, on the EFF's Atlas of Surveillance dataset. Half data journalism, half mapmaking.
Who Is Watched, and With What
Surveillance technology by jurisdiction, from the Atlas of Surveillance
technology
Every dot is an agency-technology pair from the Atlas of Surveillance - 5,333 in all. Click a dot for the agency and what it bought; the legend chips toggle technologies. Large metros at the country's edges run the most analytical tools, not just the most cameras.
The Supply Chain
Agencies, technologies, and the vendors behind them
From technology class through tool type to the agencies that deploy them - hover a node to trace its flows. Technology colors match the maps.
What's counted: the map's 5,333 dots are agency-technology pairs, one per agency-tool combination; 2,618 is distinct purchasing agencies. The sankey counts each pair once per stage it passes through, so summing its ribbons exceeds the pair count.
technology
vendor country
The globe drifts until you grab it. Each line ties a US agency to the country supplying its technology; purple dots are vendor countries, small dots the 2,618 buying agencies. Two-thirds of the import side runs through one company: DJI.
Original version: vendor map.
Key Numbers
1,332
Agencies Partnered with Ring
5,333
Agency-Technology Pairs
8
Vendor Countries
Findings
- One doorbell company sits behind a huge share of it. Ring, owned by Amazon, has partnerships with about 1,332 US law enforcement agencies. A private camera network wired into local policing at a scale no public agency ever built - and it's why most US-made surveillance tech traces back to Santa Monica, California.
- The import market is basically one company too. China dominates the international vendor side almost entirely through DJI drone manufacturing. Follow the supply chain and a sprawling national system narrows to a handful of firms.
- The data flows uphill. Local collection feeds state systems, which feed federal homeland security intelligence offices. The fullest picture of any neighborhood exists furthest from it - and the vendors who build the tools keep access to the civic data they generate.
- There are levers. NYC's 2022 Geolocation Tracking Ban bill and watchdogs like the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project show what oversight can look like. You can't regulate a system you can't see - which is what the maps are for.