Police Surveillance and the Perils of Techno-Solutionism

Authors

• Prithika Balakrishnan, University of California College of the Law, San Francisco

Abstract

This Article charts domestic law enforcement’s use of video surveillance, beginning in the backlash to the Civil Rights movement in the late 1960s, continuing through the War on Terror and, more recently, in the context of the post-George Floyd public critiques of policing. The undergirding philosophy of policing’s embrace of surveillance technology is techno-solutionism, the view that all complex social situations can be simplified to measurable data primed for quick-fix, unbiased, algorithmic answers. While technology may have initially been adopted by police to respond to specific problems, it has changed the problems themselves, altered the array of potential solutions, and changed policing’s ultimate objectives.

In the early 2020s, as data became capable of greater integration and algorithmic analysis, law enforcement turned to video surveillance as a tool to address staffing challenges – a “force multiplier” promising increased efficiency in meeting policing goals with fewer officers. While intended to solve perceived staffing challenges, surveillance technology has remolded the purposes of policing. It has reoriented policing from evidence gathering and deterrence to a focus on constant data collection and crime prediction. This Article introduces the concept of the suspect data double, virtual profiles that reduce each of us to uninterrogated correlations mined from constant surveillance and utilized by law enforcement. It argues that the expansion of police surveillance in the last fifty years, in general, and its techno-solutionist trajectory, in particular, lead to troubling implications concerning how surveillance technology will deepen racial bias and move policing towards pervasive data gathering.

Recommended Citation

Prithika Balakrishnan, Police Surveillance and the Perils of Techno-Solutionism, 31 Mich. J. Race & L. 61 (2026).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl/vol31/iss1/3