Babel Street, a data intelligence company, has become central to government surveillance of activists through its social media data mining and profiling tools, though civil rights class actions directly against the company remain limited. What has emerged instead is documented evidence that federal and local law enforcement agencies used Babel Street’s platforms to systematically collect, analyze, and build dossiers on protest organizers, civil rights advocates, and activist communities—from Ferguson and Baltimore protests in 2015 to pro-Palestine student demonstrations in 2024. Related litigation has focused on Babel Street’s customers (government agencies) and data broker practices, with privacy lawsuits like Atlas Data Privacy Corp.
V. Babel Street beginning to challenge the company’s operations directly.
Table of Contents
- How Babel Street’s Social Media Data Mining Built Activist Profiles
- Government Agencies Have Used Babel Street to Maintain Secret Activist Dossiers
- The Baltimore/Ferguson Precedent: Babel Street and Police Surveillance of Racial Justice Movements
- What Activists and Concerned Citizens Can Do to Limit Digital Exposure
- Related Litigation: Atlas Data Privacy Corp. v. Babel Street and Data Broker Accountability
- Amnesty International’s 2024 Report: Current and Ongoing Activist Surveillance
- What Comes Next: Privacy Law, Surveillance Oversight, and Activist Digital Rights
How Babel Street’s Social Media Data Mining Built Activist Profiles
Babel Street operates a suite of platforms—primarily Babel Street Babel and SOCRAT (Social Content Research & Analysis Tool)—that scan millions of websites and dozens of social media platforms to collect, aggregate, and analyze publicly available information. The company doesn’t hack accounts or illegally access data; instead, it harvests information already posted publicly and applies AI-driven pattern recognition to connect individual posts, profiles, and networks into comprehensive dossiers. This legal-but-invasive approach allowed the DC Police Department, between 2014 and 2022, to monitor 25 social media platforms and millions of websites to identify and track protest activity and activist networks in the nation’s capital.
The power of this approach lies in its ability to identify not just who participated in protests, but who is connected to whom—creating maps of activist networks based on social connections, shared interests, event attendance, and digital footprints. In 2015, when Babel Street provided DC authorities a list of 59 people who attended both the Baltimore protests and Ferguson protests against police brutality, the company’s system didn’t stop there. It also identified people connected to these attendees who had never themselves protested, pulling in a veteran, student, and public school teacher based solely on their social media associations.
Government Agencies Have Used Babel Street to Maintain Secret Activist Dossiers
Federal agencies, particularly Customs and Border Protection (CBP), have deployed Babel Street data to maintain databases on activists and journalists without warrants or traditional investigative oversight. In January 2019, CBP used Babel Street intelligence to build a secret database containing detailed dossiers on 59 activists, journalists, and social media influencers associated with the Migrant Caravan movement. These files weren’t compiled as part of criminal investigations; they were intelligence collections on people engaged in protected political speech and journalism. The scale and scope of this surveillance expanded significantly through the 2020s.
By 2024, Amnesty International documented that U.S. authorities continue using Babel Street’s AI-powered tools to target pro-Palestine student protesters and migrants, extending the company’s role in suppressing protected activism beyond immigration enforcement into civil rights demonstrations on campuses and communities. However, a critical limitation exists: the public disclosure of these practices has been sporadic and often revealed only through FOIA requests and investigative journalism. Many activists and journalists have no way of knowing they’ve been added to a Babel Street-powered government database, and the scope of ongoing surveillance remains unknown.
The Baltimore/Ferguson Precedent: Babel Street and Police Surveillance of Racial Justice Movements
The 2015 case involving DC authorities represents one of the first documented instances of Babel Street enabling targeted surveillance of a civil rights movement. After the protests in Baltimore (sparked by Freddie Gray’s death in police custody) and Ferguson (following Michael Brown’s killing), law enforcement wanted to identify and track protesters moving between cities. Babel Street’s tools provided exactly that capability. The company’s system identified 59 individuals who attended both protest locations, then expanded the list to include their social media connections—people who had never set foot at a protest but were flagged as part of activist networks.
The implications went beyond surveillance theater. Individuals on these lists faced potential harassment, doxxing, or discriminatory treatment by authorities. A public school teacher included on the list faced career risks; the student and veteran had their privacy violated and their associations recorded in government databases. These weren’t criminal suspects pursued through traditional investigation; they were names generated by an algorithm designed to map protest movements. The incident exposed how Babel Street’s social media scraping, without specific warrants or individualized suspicion, could criminalize protest and association itself.
What Activists and Concerned Citizens Can Do to Limit Digital Exposure
Understanding that Babel Street and similar platforms harvest public social media data is the first step toward protecting yourself. Unlike hacking or sophisticated surveillance, you cannot prevent your publicly posted information from being scraped, but you can reduce your digital footprint and awareness trail. This means being intentional about what you post publicly, avoiding posting photos and location data from protest locations (geotagging is particularly dangerous), and considering whether social media accounts need to reflect your real name and identity.
However, a tradeoff exists: limiting your digital presence may reduce your ability to organize, document, and communicate within activist communities. Many activists rely on social media for coordination, fundraising, and narrative-building against suppression. The choice between digital safety and digital activism is not equally accessible to all communities; well-resourced organizations may hire digital security consultants, while grassroots movements work with limited resources. Another comparison point: individuals with attorney support have greater legal recourse if they discover they’re on government surveillance lists, while activists without legal representation have fewer remedies for dossier creation based on Babel Street data.
Related Litigation: Atlas Data Privacy Corp. v. Babel Street and Data Broker Accountability
The first significant legal challenge directly against Babel Street came in October 2024, when Atlas Data Privacy Corp. filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for New Jersey (case 1:2024cv10596). The suit alleges violations of New Jersey’s Daniel’s Law, a state data privacy statute that restricts how data brokers can collect and sell personal information.
This lawsuit is part of Atlas’s broader campaign targeting 151 data brokers on behalf of 20,000 New Jersey law enforcement officers—but Babel Street’s inclusion suggests the company’s practices are increasingly scrutinized for legal violations. A limitation of existing litigation is crucial to understand: most lawsuits target Babel Street’s *customers* (government agencies using the tools) rather than Babel Street itself. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) sued the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to compel disclosure of how they use Babel Street’s location-tracking services, but the suit aims at government agencies, not the private company. The emerging legal theory—that data brokers themselves violate privacy laws—is newer and less established than government accountability, meaning Babel Street may face limited legal liability for enabling surveillance unless state and federal data privacy laws expand significantly.
Amnesty International’s 2024 Report: Current and Ongoing Activist Surveillance
In 2024, Amnesty International released a comprehensive report documenting that U.S. authorities continue deploying Babel Street and similar AI surveillance tools against pro-Palestine student activists and migrant communities. The report identified this as a pattern, not isolated incidents, and framed the surveillance as a threat to fundamental rights to protest, organize, and seek asylum.
Amnesty’s findings indicate that as political movements have evolved—from racial justice demonstrations to migration advocacy to Middle East policy activism—Babel Street’s role as a surveillance infrastructure provider has remained constant. The specificity of the Amnesty findings matters: the organization documented which tools were used, which agencies deployed them, and what data elements were tracked. This transparency, rare in the surveillance industry, gives activists and civil rights organizations concrete evidence to cite in litigation and policy advocacy. However, Amnesty’s focus on documented cases means significant portions of Babel Street surveillance remain undisclosed—the company’s tools are used globally and by private companies as well as governments, meaning the true scope of activist profiling may be substantially larger than reported incidents suggest.
What Comes Next: Privacy Law, Surveillance Oversight, and Activist Digital Rights
The legal landscape around data brokers and activist surveillance is shifting. State-level privacy laws like New Jersey’s Daniel’s Law provide new grounds to challenge companies like Babel Street, and pending federal privacy legislation could impose stricter restrictions on social media scraping and profiling practices. Simultaneously, government surveillance of protesters is receiving renewed scrutiny from Congress, civil rights organizations, and courts, particularly following the January 6 Capitol breach (which itself involved heavy social media analysis and CCTV forensics).
For activists, this moment presents both risk and opportunity. The risk is clear: as Babel Street’s capabilities grow and government agencies adopt its tools, the surveillance infrastructure targeting dissent becomes more sophisticated and harder to detect. The opportunity lies in growing legal momentum—both through privacy law enforcement and public pressure—to hold data brokers accountable. Civil rights organizations are increasingly aware of surveillance as a tool of movement suppression, and litigation like the Atlas case suggests courts may be willing to impose limits on data broker practices, even if direct activist-versus-Babel-Street class actions remain rare.
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