The 2025 Mapping Atlanta project estimated that the city has 124 surveillance cameras for every 1,000 residents. Police and AI-powered cameras are tracking residents' every move, especially in Black neighborhoods.
There are cameras everywhere: Body cams. Public transportation. License-plate readers. School surveillance cameras. All linked into one massive surveillance network that cops can monitor in real time, even when no suspected crime has been committed. Now, AI is supercharging mass surveillance.
Before AI, police departments used surveillance footage to investigate situations where there was already a suspicion of wrongdoing. Now, AI enables them to manufacture suspicion before it exists. Increased surveillance has also worsened the environmental conditions in Black neighborhoods where data centers are being built and where camera presence is densest.
The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, better known as "Cop City"—the center of this surveillance web—sits atop a green space that once cooled the area known for extreme heat, flooding, and sewage issues. More AI-powered camera technology means more data centers, and even more environmental strain on Black and working-class neighborhoods.
Research shows that increased police presence doesn't reduce violent crime. It just means more incarceration and more Black people dying. Atlanta's mass surveillance creates a blueprint that police departments can replicate in Black communities everywhere. Cities should be using funding to strengthen our communities and solve problems at the root, not on cops and cameras.