LAPD Engaged Private Firm to Track Defund Police Movement Online

Internal documents, obtained by the Brennan Center for Justice through public records requests, reveal that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) worked with Edge NPD, a Polish firm that specializes in “strategic communications,” to monitor social media and collect millions of tweets last year, including thousands related to Black Lives Matter and “defund the police,” reports The Guardian. The department conducted a one-month trial of social media monitoring software from the company that typically worked in advertising and marketing to monitor 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.

The company was connected to LAPD by a US government agency that had used the firm’s software. During the 40-day trial in October and November of 2020, Edge NPD 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 (which at the time was prompting local LA protests). The records suggest that LAPD was interested in using the company’s services, in part to help the department respond to “negative narratives” and to flag possible threats. Critics raised questions about the effectiveness of pulling in so much data in so little time and voiced concerns about the LAPD tracking critics, oversight of surveillance technology, as well as police agencies’ data collection practices.