Some documents indicate the OSINT officers take what appears to be a broad and overly-permissive attitude when collecting logs, sometimes scooping up content from individuals who may have no clear relationship to the violence at all. Such notes read: “possible witnesses,” “possible social media for victim,” and “possible relative.” In a OneZero analysis of 12 months worth of CPD’s OSINT records, approximately two records with an unredacted note mentioned that the item had come from a “possible offender” or “offender.”

Meanwhile, content from family members of victims often gets picked up. An OSINT log for an individual who was shot and killed in December 2017 included a Facebook post belonging to the victim’s father. The post indicates that the father had just learned his son had been killed. “My heart is heavy right now,” the post, which includes a photo of the victim begins. “Got a call to find out they took my son life today…”

A separate log regarding another shooting includes a screencap of two public Facebook posts apparently made by the victim’s significant other, expressing relief and gratitude that their partner was still alive. These Facebook posts also include partially redacted photos, one of which appears to show the victim in a hospital bed. “Soon you will be with me in our lil apartment cooling with no worries,” one of the posts reads.

In some cases, the OSINT logs contain screencaps of Facebook posts and subsequent comments. An entry from late 2017 shows that police captured a over a dozen Facebook posts and comments from people mourning the death of a victim.

OneZero identified 31 people including victims and others whose public Facebook posts or comments were captured in the CPD’s OSINT surveillance between November of 2017 and July of 2019. More than a dozen of them were contacted for this article, though none agreed to provide comment.

The CPD did not provide complete logs from between 2017 and 2019, and did not respond to a list of questions for this story.

The documents reviewed by OneZero reveal for the first time that the CPD uses social media to surveil victims of gun violence as well as individuals who know the victims.

Additional documents obtained through FOIA and reviewed by OneZero also shed further light on CPD’s partnerships with third-party social media data mining firms. Invoices indicate that the CPD spent more than $1.25 million on Dunami — a social media surveillance software made by PathAR LLC — between 2014 and 2018.

In February of this year, the ACLU of Illinois called on the CPD to cease its use of Dunami to collect information on the residents of the city. “This invasive program should be suspended immediately until there is time for full, public airing of the reach, power, and use of the tool,” Police Practices Project Director for the ACLU of Illinois, Karen Sheley, said at the time. In response, the CPD released a statement that read, in part, “Like every law enforcement agency in the country, the Chicago Police Department references open source and public-facing social media platforms to safeguard the city against potential threats and criminal activity as that is what is required in today’s digital age. We understand and support constitutional protections of personal privacy and work to ensure that all of our operating policies are in strict accordance with state and federal law.”

PathAR claims Dunami can analyze social media for given topics selected by the user in order to identify people who are influencing or contributing to that topic. The product, which the CIA invested in, is used by the FBI, the Defense Department, and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. The CPD and Chicago Public Schools have been using Dunami to monitor public school students “for signs of violence and gang membership” according to a 2019 ProPublica report. A 2016 article from Reveal noted that Dunami and other softwares like it “mine Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media to determine networks of association, centers of influence, and potential signs of radicalization.”

CPD did not respond to a request for comment regarding whether or not it is using Dunami to surveil victims of gun violence.

Chicago-based human rights lawyer Jerry Boyle tells OneZero that revelations about the police department’s surveillance of victims will exacerbate tensions between law enforcement and residents of the city. Surveilling victims and others who know them “certainly doesn’t build trust in the police department, which in turn reduces the quality of the police’s intelligence,” says Boyle.

Boyle adds that such surveillance “is just devastating” for victims and their loved ones. “This is no way to treat traumatized people. It’s just wrong.”

The OSINT surveillance of victims by the CPD also highlights broader concerns about how police departments confront gang violence.

CPD’s apparent emphasis on gang affiliation in the OSINT logs calls into question whether the CPD was using information from the so-called Chicago gang database. That database drew significant public outcry last year for its racist methodology, and has since been banned for use. These concerns were later underscored in an April 2019 report by Chicago’s office of inspector general.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Sheard argues that lawmakers and social media platforms should consider the ill effects of surveillance practices on communities. “There’s a lot to think about regarding the responsibility [that] platforms have as they become more ubiquitous and essential mechanisms of communication,” Sheard says, “and also the responsibility that our lawmakers have to make sure that we’re not creating patterns and practices that will exacerbate and continue these historical biases that we’ve seen harm already marginalized communities.”