December 15, 2021

LAPD Used A Foreign Tech Firm To Track Black Lives Matter Tweets And We Don’t Know Why

Internal documents, obtained by the Brennan Center for Justice through public records requests,  show that a Polish tech firm with no law enforcement experience helped the LAPD collect tens of thousands of tweets related to Black Lives Matter and racial justice protests.

Why? Well, we aren’t sure why the force felt it necessary to track the tweets or why it used an external firm based miles away.

But according to recent media reports – the department conducted a one-month trial of social media monitoring software from Edge NPD. This company typically worked in advertising and marketing and actually has no prior experience contracting with any law enforcement.

During the 40-day trial in October and November of 2020, Edge NPD, which is based in Warsaw, Poland, provided LAPD with a dashboard monitoring tweets related to six topics: “civil unrest”, “American policing”, “domestic extremism and white nationalism”, “election security”, “potential danger” and the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

It took place in fall 2020 and Edge NPD tracked tweets on roughly 200 keywords for LAPD, the records show, reported The Guardian.

The outlet said the data set included tens of thousands of tweets related to Black Lives Matter and racial justice protests, some of them from prominent Black activists outside of LA and private civilians advocating for reforms.

Documents did not reveal what LAPD did with the collected data, and the department did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Guardian.

LAPD did not pursue a permanent contract with the firm. But still, experts said, the trial itself raised serious concerns.

Although law enforcement, journalists, and researchers regularly monitor public online activity, some told the Guardian that it was troubling that a police agency’s social media monitoring activities appeared to include tracking a broad swath of critics. 

Abbianca Makoni

Abbianca Makoni is a content executive and writer at POCIT! She has years of experience reporting on critical issues affecting diverse communities around the globe.

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