Business isn’t good at a Chicago tech company that was outed last month for its practice of buying social media data and re-selling it to police.
Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union revealed that Geofeedia had been given special access to data by Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in order to build software products for police that the ACLU called “surveillance tools.” Facebook and Instagram took action to limit Geofeedia’s access in September, and Twitter cut the company off after reviewing the ACLU report.
Losing access to those social media data feeds seems to have had a big impact on Geofeedia’s business. A Geofeedia spokesperson today told the Chicago Tribune that it laid off 31 employees out of about 60 total.
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Source: Ars Technica – Surveillance firm slashes staff after losing Facebook, Twitter data