Back to LAPD Architecture of Surveillance
Back to The AOS Platform
The Architecture of Surveillance (AOS) Platform is an ongoing project organized by the Data-Driven Policing Working Group within the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition. The platform contains a database collection of 52 articles (pages) about surveillance architecture, and other pages that dive deeper into histories, themes, and resources related to the architecture of surveillance.
<aside> <img src="/icons/megaphone_red.svg" alt="/icons/megaphone_red.svg" width="40px" /> “Architecture of Surveillance” refers to various elements of human-based and electronic-based systems, technologies, programs, and spatial practices that the LAPD and policing partnerships around the world use to surveil us.
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These tools of social control are deployed through various sectors, including social services, health care, housing, and employment. This enables a constant surveillance and policing of our bodies in every aspect of our lives. Communities of color, immigrants, and poor folks are the primary targets of these modes of surveillance.
For more, see About the AOS Platform.
The state has always used data to contain, control, and criminalize our communities, and “data-driven policing” is how police automate and justify their racism, violence, and banishment in our communities. The term “data-driven policing” refers to the collection and mining of mass data to determine which people and places will be policed. It includes hot-spot policing, predictive policing, proactive policing, intelligence-led policing, and more.
To learn more about the Coalition’s Fight Against Data-Driven Policing and its Working Group, please visit the Coalition’s page regarding Data-Driven Policing and Our Fight.
Data-Driven Policing - Stop LAPD Spying Coalition
The table is for the community, and for anyone who wants to learn more about these deadly tools of surveillance and social control. The intention is to make the information more accessible to the community, especially folks who are most heavily impacted and surveilled, and to allow us to draw connections to communities globally. With the images and descriptions, we also seek to be a resource for local community members, community advocates, legal observers, and other allies to be able to identify technology in the street or in our communities. The writing style is intended to lay bare the harm of the technology and not glamorize it.
The basic breakdown for each entry is as follows: