Blue walls and black boxes: Theorizing the politics of knowledge in police technology

Abstract In 2020, journalists uncovered that Canadian police services had surreptitiously acquired Clearview AI’s privacy-invasive facial recognition technology without disclosing its use to the public. The revelations sparked national controversy, putting a spotlight on police’s penchant for keeping surveillance technologies a secret from external stakeholders. This article uses the Clearview AI controversy to examine the sociology and politics of knowledge surrounding police technology. Drawing on the theoretical framework of agnotology, this article argues that Canadian police rely on a complex web of legal, political and organizational structures—such as non-disclosure agreements, procurement by-laws and freedom of information legislation—to produce ignorance and assert the primacy of their own professional expertise about surveillance technology.