Dirty Versus Clean Data: The Politics of Data-Driven Policing in South Africa

Abstract

This chapter examines data-driven policing in South Africa by focusing on a massive CCTV surveillance infrastructure developed and managed by Vumacam that is embedded within public–private policing partnerships. This massive infrastructure collects vast amounts of data, primarily through cameras positioned in public spaces reading license plate registration (LPR). These data are subsequently transformed into social categories of data that distinguish between ‘dirty’ and ‘clean’ data. This distinction, whereby clean data is associated with the private security sector and dirty data with the state police, both mirrors and reproduces hierarchies within the South African pluralized policing landscape that consolidate the dominant role of the private security industry. Therefore, while the shift toward data-driven policing has provided new practices, relations, and norms, it has simultaneously consolidated the leading role of the private sector in South African security governance.