Bait, Mask, and Ruse: Technology and Police Deception

Abstract

Deception and enticement have long been tools of the police, but new technologies have enabled investigative deceit to become more powerful and pervasive. Most of the attention given to today’s advances in police technology tends to focus either on online government surveillance or on the use of algorithms for predictive policing or threat assessment. No less important but less well known, however, are the enhanced capacities of the police to bait, lure, and dissemble in order to investigate crime. What are these new deceptive capabilities, and what is their importance?

Keywords: covert, deception, police, Fourth Amendment, undercover, technology, GPS, criminal law, internet, DNA, law enforcement, privacy, online