On Friday, August 21st, CT For All, a statewide coalition of labor, community, and faith-based organizations partnered with Make The Road Connecticut, an organization supporting immigrant and working-class communities, to host a webinar on the threat of tech surveillance in our state.
The hour-long presentation included a reflection on the compounding crises impacting CT residents (ICE abductions, family separations, healthcare access, food costs, energy and utilities costs, etc), educated the 80+ attendees on how multibillion dollar corporations like Palantir are profiting from and perpetuating violence both at home and abroad, and put out the call to action to get involved.
We know that while our communities and community members are being targeted, technology companies Flock Safety and Palantir Technologies are profiting. The data their products collect and the surveillance they enable is being used as a monitoring tool against our communities.
About 10 years ago, many groups and individuals fought hard and won the right for residents who are undocumented to get drivers licenses here in CT. There was trust in the system and this win was seen as a step towards inclusion. A decade later, this act of good will by vulnerable residents is being used against these same community members as their data is being used as currency within the government without their consent.
Local CT politicians passed legislation (S.B. 397) earlier this year to limit data storage from Flock cameras and other ALPRs to 21 days. However, this will not be effective until 10/1/2026 and will still require the community to monitor actions and ensure the law is being upheld. To keep track of where cameras are located, you can access a map here: deflock.org.
Beyond Flock and Palantir, AI is also threatening the workplace. During the webinar, Cedric de Leon, Professor of Sociology and Labor Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, presented on three examples of what this looks like:
- Burger King: Employees were a headset with AI built in. It is marketed as a tool to instruct employees how to build orders, but it also tracks emotional metrics and gives "friendliness" score to managers
- Aware: A third party vendor (for companies like Delta, Chevron, AstraZeneca) that companies use to minimize workplace toxicity but it is tracking all employee communications and breaks down their reactions to policies or proposals by age, race, ethnicity
- Healthcare: AI is being used to tracking vitals with ability to administer medicine on its own. But the AI can misdiagnose with difficult overrides and lead to fatal outcomes
The facilitators of the call summarized their coalition’s demands into four categories.
First, continue to push back and resist data center construction. Toxify any affiliation with Palantir by exposing the ways in which it harms our communities. Next, we need to isolate politicians who take money from Palantir. Blumenthal, Murphy, and Himes have records of receiving money from Palantir employees. They are selling out our communities by taking these contributions. Third, all contracts with Palantir and Flock should be terminated and we need to put pressure on our institutions (government, educational, religious etc.) to divest from Palantir. Finally, we need to unify to build upon this work!
If you’re interested in getting more involved in a local campaign against tech surveillance, consider joining an upcoming event. On September 26th, the CT Civil Liberties Defense Committee is hosting an Educational Forum on Flock, ALPRs, and FOIAs in Connecticut.
You can also sign on as an individual or with an affiliated organization to urge CT members of Congress to reject money from Palantir and donate what they’ve received thus far back to our communities.
We invite you to spread the word about this campaign and get involved!
— Nicole, UCPEA Social Justice Committee Member