Thread by @allthecitizens

🚨 NEW: An @allthecitizens investigation has found £5m worth of UK govt contracts with a company used by US police to disperse #BLM protests.

This is #protest recognition tech: the scariest #AI you've never heard of. Dr Eleanor Drage @TheGoodRobot1 @CambridgeGender explains all.

Social media monitoring companies, like Geofeedia and Dataminr, have been known to partner with police in the US, using their tech to surveil protestors and feed real-time information based on social media activity back to law enforcement.
theguardian.com/technology/201…

Dataminr, a company which received early investment from the CIA, is an AI company that is granted full access to Twitter's content stream, known as the 'fire-hose', allowing it to scan every single public tweet.
privacyinternational.org/examples/4546/…

In the US, the software has been deployed by police and intelligence services like the CIA and FBI, to track protestors and monitor movements of BLM demonstrations in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.

Now, the firm is getting a foothold in the UK...
theintercept.com/2020/07/09/twi…

.@allthecitizens have analysed public sector contracts awarded to Dataminr, and have found as much as £5m spent on the company between 2018-2021.

The software has been deployed by the Ministry of Defence, Foreign Office, Cabinet Office, and Crown Commercial Services.

Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Hogan-Howe was also paid for an online speaking engagement with Dataminr in 2020.

The company says publicly that it "transforms the Twitter stream and other public datasets into actionable alerts, providing must-know information in real-time".
theverge.com/2017/1/19/1431…

But critics highlight the software's use by police and intelligence agencies to monitor protestors and activists, and that the 'domestic spy centres', which used to have Dataminr access in the US, collected data that was 'often about innocent people'
theguardian.com/technology/201…

Most contracts awarded to Dataminr by the government have been between 2020-21, with some running through to 2022.

As part of an ongoing investigation into #ProtestRecognition tech, @allthecitizens will continue to monitor further advancements they make into the public sector.