When you’re a Black teenager from the South Bronx, Brownsville, or Bedford, you’re at least twice as likely to be involved in a shooting as your peers in wealthier neighborhoods; home is not a welcoming place to return to after school. You grow up fast and stop dreaming the moment you understand you’ll have to save yourself, and to survive you adapt.

Since 2007, the department has spent billions of dollars on surveillance contracts, including New York’s Domain Awareness System — a real-time surveillance map of the city procured from Microsoft for over $1 billion — which unifies into a single centralized network more than a dozen public and private technologies, including camera systems, tracking tools, and biometric devices.

Surveillance technologies – from facial recognition to predictive tools – are increasingly being deployed in courts and by law enforcement agencies. Without proper testing, regulation, or transparency, these systems amplify racial and social inequalities, undermine the presumption of innocence, and put millions of people at risk through errors, misidentifications, and data misuse.
The issue is particularly alarming in countries with majority Black populations and in societies where penal selectivity disproportionately targets Black and poor communities. In Brazil, cities like Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Salvador have legalized the use of facial recognition systems that had already been implemented without public debate.