New technology has provided an increasingly ubiquitous tool with the potential to build trust between police and the communities they serve and help enhance accountability and transparency in policing and the justice system overall. At the same time, the arrival of new technology does not guarantee that a police agency will better protect the civil rights of the community it serves. Such technology could also be used to intensify disproportionate surveillance and disproportionate enforcement in heavily policed communities of color. Without the right safeguards, there is a real risk that these new tools could become instruments of injustice.

This document is a workshop primer from Data & Civil Rights: A New Era of Policing and Justice.