Skip to content
Campaign
February 25, 2021
Data weapons

No More Data Weapons

The term, Data Weapon, coined by D4BL founder and executive director, Yeshimabeit Milner, refers to any technological tool used to surveil, police and criminalize Black and Brown communities. There is a long history of these data enabled tools being weaponized against Black people. Data weapons are meant to augment or replace existing systems of surveillance, policing and criminalization of Black and Brown folks. In this way, these tools act as force multipliers that enhance the everyday racial terror of the criminal legal system. Data Weapons aggressively expand state surveillance efforts, exponentially increase the ability of law enforcement and state actors to relentlessly punish and criminalize Black communities, limit the movements of Black people, and effectively transform Black neighborhoods into zones of heightened patrol and policing, mirroring the prisons and detention facilities that hold millions of our people captive everyday.