Chicago Tonight: Black Voices — January 28, 2023 Full Episode

Our Take

Credit to WTTW's Chicago Tonight: Black Voices team for landing a direct interview with the head of ShotSpotter, the acoustic gunshot detection company that's been dogged by accuracy complaints, wrongful arrests tied to its data, and a City Council fight over renewing its contract. Getting a company CEO to answer questions on camera, rather than through a press release, is worth watching regardless of how you feel about the technology.

What ties this episode together is bigger than one contract. ShotSpotter, predictive policing tools, and license plate readers all run on the same premise: blanket sensor networks watching entire neighborhoods, disproportionately Black and Brown ones, with residents given no say in whether the tech gets deployed. The same episode pairs that story with a ballot question on civilian oversight of CPD, which is exactly the kind of accountability mechanism that's been missing from how surveillance contracts get approved in the first place.

Chicago has also been expanding its Flock Safety camera footprint alongside these audio sensors, stacking one surveillance layer on another with little public debate about retention, sharing, or error rates. If you want to see what's actually watching your block, check our map, and if you think your alderman should be answering the same kind of hard questions this CEO faced, our take-action page has next steps.