According to a press release distributed on October 2, 2023, Geolitica, the company behind PredPol, a predictive policing technology known to exacerbate inequalities by directing police to already heavily monitored communities, is reportedly buying Sound Thinking, the company behind ShotSpotter, an acoustic gunshot detection technology that is rife with issues.
Cities must act quickly to outlaw the bad practices of both of these technologies as a result of the consolidation of dangerous and faulty technology. Currently, more than 100 American law enforcement organizations are connected to ShotSpotter. Contrarily, PredPol was utilized in about 38 cities in 2021 (although this number may be significantly greater today). A 2018 press release stated that predictive policing would be available as an add-on product and that the integration of the two would "enable it to update predictive models and patrol missions in real time." Shotspotter's acquisition of Hunchlab already led the company to claim that the tools work "hand in hand."
It is far simpler for cities to end up installing a suite of destructive technologies without significant supervision, transparency, or public control when businesses like Sound Thinking and Geolitica combine and bundle their goods. For instance, Axon's plan to equip indoor drones with tasers drew criticism from academics, lawyers, activists, and its own ethics board. An indication that the firm would be eager to revive the drone taser program that caused a sizable number of their ethics board to resign is the announcement of their acquisition of Sky-Hero, which creates small tactical UAVS. Mergers may signal plans for the future.
Cindy Cohn
| EFF
These tools do, in some ways, go well together. Both gunshot detection and predictive policing have serious flaws and are harmful to disadvantaged populations. This bundling should make it simpler to fend them off as well. As we've previously stated, tests have revealed that Shotspotter's technology is unreliable, and as a result, its warnings can cause the deployment of armed police to a region where there isn't any armed resistance, potentially making innocent locals the object of suspicion. According to PredPol, algorithms can forecast criminal activity. This is obviously untrue. But that fallacy has contributed to the large profits made by the predictive policing sector, which is expected to be worth over $5 billion by the end of 2023. This untrue promise gives the impression that police departments are taking an active role in combating crime when they purchase predictive policing technology. Predictive policing actually worsens racist violence against Black, Latino, and other communities of color while perpetuating centuries-old enforcement disparities.
