SAN FRANCISCO The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is pleased to announce it has received the James Madison Freedom of Information Award for Electronic Access for its groundbreaking, crowd-sourced Atlas of Surveillance, the largest-ever collection of searchable data on the use of surveillance technologies by law enforcement agencies across the country.
The Atlas, launched in July, contains data on more than 7,000 surveillance programs including facial recognition, drones, and automated license plate readers operated by thousands of local police departments and sheriffs offices nationwide. With a clickable U.S map and a searchable database of cities and technologies, the Atlas sheds light on the devices and systems being purchased locally, often without residents’ knowledge or any oversight, to surveil people and neighborhoods.