Winner, 2018 Law & Legal Studies PROSE Award The consequences of big data and algorithm-driven policing and its impact on law enforcement In a high-tech command center in downtown Los Angeles, a digital map lights up with 911 calls, television monitors track breaking news stories, surveillance cameras sweep the streets, and rows of networked computers link analysts and police officers to a wealth of law enforcement intelligence. This is just a glimpse into a future where software predicts future crimes, algorithms generate virtual “most-wanted” lists, and databanks collect personal and biometric information. The Rise of Big Data Policing introduces the cutting-edge technology that is changing how the police do their jobs and shows why it is more important than ever that citizens understand the far-reaching consequences of big data surveillance as a law enforcement tool. Andrew Guthrie Ferguson reveals how these new technologies —viewed as race-neutral and objective—have been eagerly adopted by police departments hoping to distance themselves from claims of racial bias and unconstitutional practices. After a series of high-profile police shootings and federal investigations into systemic police misconduct, and in an era of law enforcement budget cutbacks, data-driven policing has been billed as a way to “turn the page” on racial bias. But behind the data are real people, and difficult questions remain about racial discrimination and the potential to distort constitutional protections. In this first book on big data policing, Ferguson offers an examination of how new technologies will alter the who, where, when and how we police. These new technologies also offer data-driven methods to improve police accountability and to remedy the underlying socio-economic risk factors that encourage crime. The Rise of Big Data Policing is a must read for anyone concerned with how technology will revolutionize law enforcement and its potential threat to the security, privacy, and constitutional rights of citizens. Read an excerpt and interview with Andrew Guthrie Ferguson in The Economist.

Intelligence gathering is in a state of flux. Enabled by massive computing power, new modes of communications analysis now touch the lives of citizens around the globe – not just those considered suspicious or threatening. Big Data Surveillance and Security Intelligence reveals the profound shift to “big data” practices that security agencies have made in recent years, as the increasing volume of information from social media and other open sources challenges traditional intelligence gathering. Working together, the Five Eyes intelligence partners – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States – are using new methods of data analysis to identify and pre-empt risks to national security. But at what cost to civil liberties, human rights, and privacy protection? In this astute collection, leading academics, civil society experts, and regulators debate the pressing questions raised by security intelligence and surveillance in Canada in the age of big data.

Procedural and moral shortcomings in both child abuse cases and the long-term deployment of undercover police officers have raised questions about the effectiveness and efficacy of intelligence work, and yet intelligence work plays an ever growing role in policing. Part of a new series on evidence-based policing, this book is the first to offer a comprehensive, fully up-to-date account of how police can--and do--use intelligence, assessing the threats and opportunities presented by new digital technology, like the widespread use of social media and the emergence of "big data," and applying both a practical and an ethical lens to police intelligence activities.

This book offers a multidisciplinary analysis of emerging technologies and their impact on the new international security environment across three levels of analysis. While recent technological developments, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics and automation, have the potential to transform international relations in positive ways, they also pose challenges to peace and security and raise new ethical, legal and political questions about the use of power and the role of humans in war and conflict. This book makes a contribution to these debates by considering emerging technologies across three levels of analysis: (1) the international system (systemic level) including the balance of power; (2) the state and its role in international affairs and how these technologies are redefining and challenging the state’s traditional roles; and (3) the relationship between the state and society, including how these technologies affect individuals and non-state actors. This provides specific insights at each of these levels and generates a better understanding of the connections between the international and the local when it comes to technological advance across time and space The chapters examine the implications of these technologies for the balance of power, examining the strategies of the US, Russia, and China to harness AI, robotics and automation (and how their militaries and private corporations are responding); how smaller and less powerful states and non-state actors are adjusting; the political, ethical and legal implications of AI and automation; what these technologies mean for how war and power is understood and utilized in the 21st century; and how these technologies diffuse power away from the state to society, individuals and non-state actors. This volume will be of much interest to students of international security, science and technology studies, law, philosophy, and international relations.

Chapter “Predictive Policing in 2025: A Scenario” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.