Civil rights advocates flooded a City Council hearing to protest the Boston Police Department’s plan to buy $1.4 million in social media monitoring software. Advocates questioned police promises to respect citizen privacy, as well as whether the technology can actually detect threats.

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram provided access to data for Geofeedia, which then gave law enforcement the location data in order to monitor protesters in Oakland and Baltimore, according to a blog post published by the American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday.

1 2