Dr Zahra Stardust joins call for accountability for police online racial profiling
Author Kathy Nickels
Date 22 April 2024
ADM+S researcher Dr Zahra Stardust recently joined with Dr Michael Bennett, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, and the Innocence Project to submit an Amicus Brief to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts seeking increased transparency around racially-targeted, online police investigative techniques. Dr. Stardust and Dr. Bennett were represented by the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic.
Zahra, a socio-legal scholar working at the intersections of sexuality, technology, law and social justice contributed to the Amicus Brief as a Berkman Klein Centre Affiliate at Harvard University.
“For law enforcement agencies, social media data provides a cost-effective form of out-sourced surveillance and an abundance of data for intelligence-gathering and entrapment. Police are consistently looking for ‘backchannels’ to access social media data without court approval,” said Dr Stardust.
The brief was submitted on 16 April 2024 in support of defendant-appellee Richard Dilworth, Jr., who raised claims of racial profiling in the Boston Police Department’s (“BPD”) use of social media as an investigative tool.
This case arises out of the Boston Police Department’s practice of creating fake social media accounts, “friending” people of colour and then trawling their posts for evidence.
“Impersonating users on social media is just one of many net-widening tactics that subjects communities of colour to targeted surveillance and increased criminalisation. The tactics used in this case are part of the same legacy of racism and racial profiling endemic to law enforcement agencies,” said Dr Stardust.
The police refused to comply with the court-ordered discovery process, and the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts sought briefs on the standard for discovery requests on racially-investigative techniques. The police argued that social media profiling was less invasive than traffic stops or stop-and-frisk searches.
In their brief, Dr Zahra Stardust and colleagues argue that social media surveillance can impose particular harms to marginalised communities, and can be more intrusive than some offline investigations.
Moreover, it recognises the reality that online spaces have been essential for personal and political activities of communities of color. Allowing police to infiltrate these spaces would have a chilling effect on these life-saving activities.
“Discovery is essential to expose the nature and scale of these racially-investigative techniques, and to bring to light partnerships and relationships between police and social media platforms, including the extent of their data sharing and procurement practices.”
Dr Stardust has previously published about police misuse of dating app data in her research with ADM+S researchers Dr Rosalie Gillett and Professor Kath Albury.
Spring 2024 Cyberlaw Clinic students Jane Boettcher, Angie Cui, and David Poole worked on the brief alongside attorneys from ACLUM and the Innocence Project. The students were supervised by clinical instructors Wendy Chu and Mason Kortz, assisted by teaching fellow Isabel Sistachs.
Decisions from the SJC usually take around four months to deliver.
Read more about the case in this blog by the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic
Read the full Amicus Brief submission
