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‘The dream to know everything about everyone’: affordances of commercial data systems and digital net-widening in policing

‘The dream to know everything about everyone’: affordances of commercial data systems and digital net-widening in policing
‘The dream to know everything about everyone’: affordances of commercial data systems and digital net-widening in policing
This article empirically analyses the use of new commercial integrated data systems in policing. We examine the impact of one of the most widely used commercial systems in the United Kingdon, through observations of platform use and in-depth interviews with users across ranks and strategic, tactical and operational roles; and across specialist units including criminal intelligence, ‘county lines’ organised crime and victim safeguarding. Drawing on analytical tools science and technology studies, our analysis digitally nuances Cohen's seminal concept of net-widening by examining how digital policing is predicated on complex police–commercial relationships. We show how the data system itself generates affordances that drive insatiable data collection, transforms mundane encounters into surveillance opportunities, revalorises mundane information as intelligence, and reconfigures the meaning of suspicion and disrupts the temporalities of policing itself. These undermine increasingly fragile principles of police legitimacy and due process, and raise concerns around transparency and accountability in policing.
affordance, data, digital, net-widen, platform, police, policing, predictive, surveillance
1362-4806
325-345
Hadjimatheou, Katerina
94d7a9f0-d516-4abd-ab50-b43eb7718262
Fussey, Pete
1553072f-da89-4ff8-963c-deb7bfd65c4f
Hadjimatheou, Katerina
94d7a9f0-d516-4abd-ab50-b43eb7718262
Fussey, Pete
1553072f-da89-4ff8-963c-deb7bfd65c4f

Hadjimatheou, Katerina and Fussey, Pete (2025) ‘The dream to know everything about everyone’: affordances of commercial data systems and digital net-widening in policing. Theoretical Criminology, 29 (3), 325-345, [13624806251334954]. (doi:10.1177/13624806251334954).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This article empirically analyses the use of new commercial integrated data systems in policing. We examine the impact of one of the most widely used commercial systems in the United Kingdon, through observations of platform use and in-depth interviews with users across ranks and strategic, tactical and operational roles; and across specialist units including criminal intelligence, ‘county lines’ organised crime and victim safeguarding. Drawing on analytical tools science and technology studies, our analysis digitally nuances Cohen's seminal concept of net-widening by examining how digital policing is predicated on complex police–commercial relationships. We show how the data system itself generates affordances that drive insatiable data collection, transforms mundane encounters into surveillance opportunities, revalorises mundane information as intelligence, and reconfigures the meaning of suspicion and disrupts the temporalities of policing itself. These undermine increasingly fragile principles of police legitimacy and due process, and raise concerns around transparency and accountability in policing.

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e-pub ahead of print date: 7 May 2025
Published date: August 2025
Keywords: affordance, data, digital, net-widen, platform, police, policing, predictive, surveillance

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 500897
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/500897
ISSN: 1362-4806
PURE UUID: 2bf5eb00-f269-46ef-b252-0260efa16570
ORCID for Pete Fussey: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1374-7133

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 15 May 2025 16:57
Last modified: 03 Sep 2025 02:13

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Contributors

Author: Katerina Hadjimatheou
Author: Pete Fussey ORCID iD

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