Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Houston Police Department will stay in the ranks of law enforcement agencies around the country using software to monitor social media for information on criminal activity following a City Council vote on Wednesday.

Council members approved without debate or dissent spending $108,000 on software from Dataminr, a company that has drawn concern from civil liberties advocates while touting its ability to alert police to breaking events.

Supporters say Dataminr’s products do not raise privacy concerns because they rely on publicly available posts from social media users. Critics, however, have raised alarms about agencies using Dataminr products to zero in on abortion and Black Lives Matter protesters.

Dataminr is one of the most prominent of several companies offering social media monitoring to law enforcement. The debate over their products, which has played out at the local and national level, pits the promise of social media as a law enforcement tool against the civil liberties of internet users.

Houston has been paying Dataminr since February 2021, according to a City Controller vendor database.

Founded in 2009, the New York-based company offers products for businesses, government agencies and newsrooms to keep abreast of developments on social media. One of its signature selling points is access to a raw data stream from X, the social media network formerly known as Twitter. The company says that it also draws from 55,000 other public sources, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“The question becomes, who is setting up the kinds of alerts that they are receiving. Who is being placed under this web of suspicion, and who is being ignored? There is a way in which we are confirming our previous beliefs about a community based on who we choose to run searches against.”

The company claims it has used that data to alert government officials to disasters such as a chemical plant explosion in Louisiana and a high-rise condo building collapse in Florida hours before traditional news sources.

In material provided to council members, city officials said the software allows police to “enhance situational awareness and provide real-time alerts for criminal, homeland security and cyber-security purposes on all social media platforms.”

The software did not draw any objections from council members, who quickly and unanimously approved the purchase request on Wednesday. City Council approved similar spending authority in December 2022 without debate.

In other cities, however, Dataminr has drawn scrutiny from civil liberties groups who fear it could be used to single out demonstrators for exercising their First Amendment rights or ordinary residents whose social media posts are misinterpreted.

In 2022, the U.S. Marshals received regular updates from Dataminr about the location and timing of abortion rights protests, according to documents obtained by the Intercept. The company also helped police departments in Minneapolis and elsewhere keep tabs on protests following the death of George Floyd in 2020, the online outlet reported.

The company rejects the idea that its alerts amount to surveillance, however.

“First Alert provides a public good while ensuring maximum protections for privacy and civil liberties,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “First Alert is designed to prevent any form of surveillance. The product technologically restricts the ability to target, profile, monitor or search for social media users or groups of individuals.”

Ángel Díaz, a visiting assistant professor at the University of Southern California School of Law, said he was not convinced by the company’s protests that it does not offer a surveillance tool.

“It’s sort of a distinction without difference to me, because ultimately what they are providing is information about specific accounts,” he said. “They are providing an ability to surveil all tweets, and to pull out specific tweets that they believe are evidence of potential criminal activity. I don’t see how that is not surveillance.”

Díaz said he was concerned, for instance, about reports that company employees were tasked to look for information about crime on the South Side of Chicago.

“The question becomes, who is setting up the kinds of alerts that they are receiving. Who is being placed under this web of suspicion, and who is being ignored?” he said. “There is a way in which we are confirming our previous beliefs about a community based on who we choose to run searches against.”

Christopher Rivera, a spokesperson for the Texas Civil Rights Project, said he was concerned the police department could use the tool to focus on protesters.

“Ultimately, what these protesters are asking for is better situations for themselves,” he said. “Yet, police will use it to deter them and surveil them and oftentimes criminalize protected speech.”

The Houston Police Department did not answer a question about whether it has placed any limitations on its use of the software.

An HPD spokesperson noted that the software is limited to publicly available social media updates.

“It’s all public source information, so there shouldn’t be any privacy concerns,” Jodi Silva said.

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print.

Matt Sledge is the City Hall reporter for the Abdelraoufsinno. Before that, he worked in the same role for the Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate and as a national reporter for HuffPost. He’s excited...