In the wake of escalating protests in Los Angeles over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and broader immigration enforcement policies, civil liberties advocates and technologists are sounding the alarm over the scale and scope of surveillance that’s been deployed against demonstrators.
While aerial footage and law enforcement presence dominate the visible landscape of the protests, a quieter form of monitoring is unfolding in the digital realm where facial recognition tools, Ring camera footage, and social media surveillance intersect to create a sprawling matrix of protester identification.
The controversy erupted after a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer, flying over demonstrators in a helicopter, was recorded warning through a loudspeaker that “I have all of you on camera. I’m going to come to your house.”
To many, this ominous statement seemed less like hyperbole and more like a real threat, particularly given LAPD’s long-standing access to sophisticated facial recognition technologies and its history of surveilling protests. The chilling nature of the comment underscored what many activists have long feared, which is modern protest is no longer a matter of public demonstration, but of personal exposure, traceability, and potential retribution.
LAPD officials declined to comment directly on the threat, but according to a source familiar with internal operations who spoke with Forbes, the department has been combing through a vast array of visual data – including footage from helicopters, stationary surveillance cameras, and officer-worn bodycams – in an effort to identify participants in the recent protests. While LAPD policy formally restricts facial recognition searches to internal law enforcement databases, such as mugshot archives, the mere existence of this footage opens a door to broader surveillance opportunities, especially if ICE or other federal law enforcement agencies were to share with LAPD their own video and photographic databases.
Civil liberties groups and digital privacy experts condemned the LAPD police officer’s announcement. Jonathan Markovitz of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California called it “a chilling statement,” and noted that even if it was intended as a joke, it was a deliberate act of intimidation that could be construed as seeking to suppress constitutionally protected speech. “Threats to use government surveillance capabilities to punish people who are exercising those rights are fundamentally antidemocratic and authoritarian,” he added.
LAPD has increasingly relied on a growing surveillance capability. A 2023 audit by Kenneth Mejia, City Controller of Los Angeles, revealed that LAPD’s helicopters often patrol over communities of color and are equipped to record and store high-resolution aerial footage. In 2020, the police commission approved the installation of video recording equipment in helicopters, a move widely criticized at the time by activists as an unconstitutional escalation of state surveillance. The LAPD can preserve aerial protest footage indefinitely, integrating it with other data sources like body-worn cameras and license plate readers.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) policy analyst Matthew Guariglia said the psychological impact of surveillance tools like this is as serious as their technical capabilities. “You have constitutionally protected rights to protest,” he told Mother Jones, adding that “when someone wields surveillance to chill and deter people from protesting, that’s a violation of your constitutional rights.”
Guariglia warned that drone and helicopter surveillance over protests create the real possibility that authorities are generating lists of attendees using facial recognition software, and that in such cases, the threat moves from symbolic to operational, with serious implications for future political expression. He and others advocate surveillance self-defense, encouraging demonstrators to disable facial ID, avoid photographing others, and limit their phone’s connectivity.
The long-term storage of protest footage is especially concerning, critics say, noting that without transparent policies governing access and retention, such databases risk becoming tools for future political retribution. According to Mohammad Tajsar, senior staff attorney at ACLU of Southern California, “We’re heading for a real nightmare scenario where the LAPD’s secretive technology can identify anybody from a crowd of protesters with a click of a mouse.”
These fears are not unfounded. In neighborhoods like Cheviot Hills, an affluent West Los Angeles neighborhood, private residents spent over $200,000 installing automated license plate readers, giving police real-time access to data about who enters and leaves the community.
Unlike the LAPD, which is subject to certain local policies and oversight constraints, federal agencies like ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation operate under looser restrictions, particularly when it comes to facial recognition. ICE is a known client of Clearview AI, a controversial facial recognition platform that scrapes billions of images from social media platforms and public websites.
While ICE maintains that Clearview is primarily used for child exploitation investigations, its real-world deployment has been shrouded in secrecy. The agency has never fully accounted for whether or how such tools might be applied in immigration enforcement scenarios, leaving critics to wonder how many demonstrators are at risk of retroactive identification by federal eyes.
The convergence of facial recognition and aerial surveillance is compounded by another source of video data: consumer security cameras. Amazon Ring, the ubiquitous smart doorbell and security camera system, has long been at the center of surveillance debates due to its once-extensive partnerships with law enforcement.
While Amazon has publicly discontinued the program that allowed police to request Ring footage through the Neighbors app, agencies can still acquire such footage via court orders. The technical infrastructure remains intact, and video recorded by Ring devices near protest areas is potentially available to law enforcement upon request.
Sources close to LAPD confirmed to Forbes that while there is no known instance of Ring video being used in connection with this week’s protest in the city, the capability exists and has been leveraged in the past. And while Amazon declined to comment, it directed reporters to its policy guidelines, which prohibit users from posting politically controversial content to Neighbors. Nevertheless, the app has become a flashpoint. This week alone, users posted videos allegedly capturing ICE operations at a Home Depot, a shopping mall, and a Costco in the greater Los Angeles area.
Civil liberties groups have long warned of the slippery slope posed by these forms of interconnected surveillance. Organizations such as the EFF and ACLU have documented the increasing reliance of police departments on networked surveillance technologies, often without adequate public oversight.
In the aftermath of the George Floyd protests in 2020, EFF revealed that LAPD had requested Ring footage from residents in connection with protest investigations, raising alarm over warrantless data acquisition and the normalization of mass surveillance in residential areas.
The latest protests have revealed that LAPD’s surveillance reach extends beyond facial recognition and neighborhood cameras. According to a report by KQED, the department has also employed social media surveillance tools to monitor demonstrators, including those protesting Gaza-related issues.
These platforms allow law enforcement to sift through enormous volumes of public and semi-public posts, flagging individuals based on location, affiliations, or even hashtags. The ACLU has separately documented how these tools can sweep up innocent bystanders, activists, and journalists into databases that are difficult to audit or contest.
What makes this digital dragnet especially problematic is the absence of effective opt-out mechanisms or informed consent. As the California Law Review noted, there exists a stark asymmetry between the surveillance capabilities of the state and the privacy protections afforded to protesters.
While many protestors might assume that their speech and assembly are protected by the First Amendment, those rights increasingly collide with the practical realities of high-tech government surveillance. The protests may occur in public, but the identities of those involved are often harvested, stored, and potentially weaponized in private.
Communities of color bear the brunt of these policies, critics say. The Brookings Institution has argued that facial recognition technologies and predictive policing programs are disproportionately deployed in neighborhoods that are already subjected to heightened police scrutiny. These tools often reflect and reinforce existing patterns of racial bias, especially when used to preemptively monitor events tied to immigration enforcement or racial justice. The resulting feedback loop has profound implications for civil liberties and democratic accountability.
While public awareness of these issues has grown, structural reforms remain limited. Cities like San Francisco and Oakland have passed surveillance oversight ordinances requiring police departments to seek permission before deploying new technologies. Los Angeles, despite being home to one of the nation’s largest police forces and an advanced surveillance ecosystem, has lagged in adopting similarly robust measures. Lawsuits and public information requests have had limited success in prying open LAPD’s surveillance policy.
Article Topics
biometric identification | biometrics | California | facial recognition | ICE | LAPD | law enforcement | video surveillance