Information In-Formation: Algorithmic Policing and the Life of Data

Author(s): Mareile Kaufmann, Matthias Leese
Book Title: Automating Crime Prevention, Surveillance, and Military Operations
Publisher(s): Springer International Publishing
Publication Year: 2021
Publication Place: Cham, Switzerland

Many aspects of law enforcement increasingly rely on algorithmic processing of digital data. In this book chapter, Mareile Kaufmann and CSS’ Matthias Leese foreground the data that feed into algorithms. In bringing together insights gained from empirical studies on predictive policing software, new materialist thinking and approaches about the liveliness of data, the authors conceptualize data as matter that is “in-formation” due to both human and non-human capacities. They develop the analytic notion of the life cycle of data to better understand the liveliness and agency of data in any type of data-based environment, and illustrate the life cycle of data in the case of predictive policing.

Publisher's Website