What stands out during the conversations both at Table meetings and elsewhere, is the great challenge to grasp the exact nature and consequences of the trend towards more data-driven policing. Anecdotal information and incidental reports provide us with some direction but there is still a lack of clarity about the extent of data-driven policing and high-tech surveillance and how this emergent issue touches the daily lives of racialised and marginalised groups.

Therefore, there is an urgent need to surface, document and expose local stories and experiences of the harms inflicted upon racialised communities by the use of new forms of surveillance and control. Such inquiries help to gain crucial insights from the ground to inform strategies contestation and community resilience, and inspire coordinated strategies and actions. Furthermore, stories of how implementation works out in real life are needed to challenge mainstream assumptions on racialised criminalisation and to shift industry lead tech narratives.

This is What Police Tech Looks Like explores what monitoring and documenting projects exist across Europe and how stories of harm can inform potential coordinated actions.