Durham’s proposed $500K police data hub raises fears of community surveillance
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- The Durham Police Department wants a contract with software company Peregrine Technology.
- The software would be used in the proposed Real-Time Crime Center in Durham.
- Critics raised concerns of racial profiling and data surveillance if the tech is approved.
The Durham City Council is at a standstill over a proposed $517,500 “mission control center” that police say could help solve crimes more quickly but that some residents fear could lead to racial profiling.
Peregrine Technologies, based in California, has software designed to improve investigations and case management. In Durham, the city would use its software to launch a Real-Time Crime Center that would dissolve data silos and speed-up investigations into violent crime.
“Public safety agencies nationwide face a similar challenge: an abundance of data — spread across disconnected systems — without the tools to connect it, interpret it, and turn it into coordinated action to drive better outcomes,” according to a city FAQ. “Critical information often lives in separate silos or on paper, creating blind spots, compliance risks, and barriers to coordination. Peregrine was built to close that gap.
Police began envisioning the Real-Time Crime Center two years ago and want to use it to manage data, not for mass surveillance, Police Chief Patrice Andrews said at Thursday’s City Council work session.
She called criticism of the proposal “egregious disinformation.”
“If you’ve never investigated a homicide, you’ve never been there when someone has taken their last breath ... you don’t have the ability to feel what we feel,” she said at the meeting.
“What was a priority for us is reducing the time for investigations,” she explained, “so that we could be able to actually have some closure, not for not just violence victims, survivors, families for violent crime, but also for those who have been victims of property crime.”
Peregrine is a secure, cloud-based platform and complies with Criminal Justice Information Services standards, according to a memo to the city manager. This means all actions are logged, access controlled, and data encrypted. It uses artificial intelligence to automate administrative tasks, like deleting duplicate records.
“[Peregrine] does not include any generative AI abilities, and a human is always in the loop,” wrote Marcia Richardson, the city’s interim director of Technology Solutions.
Privacy fears and federal reach
Despite these assurances, the proposal met significant community pushback Thursday. ShotSpotter was also discussed as a cautionary example of previous technology that failed to meet community expectations in Durham. ShotSpotter was dissolved in early 2024 as critics said it targeted Black and Brown residents and didn’t reduce gun violence.
Resident Paul Barton said the software’s ability to “ingest data from a wide variety of sources at massive scale” would lead to the more efficient surveillance of Black and brown residents.
“Peregrine denied that their system uses generative AI in November listening sessions. Their marketing materials make it very clear that they are building large language models, or LLMs,” Barton said. “This is the same check that ChatGPT uses. And like ChatGPT, it’s impossible to tell the complete story of how Peregrine’s LLM will be trained.”
The Durham Police Department argued the city would permanently own its data and that the software would only connect records the agency already controls.
Still, residents questioned Peregrine’s true intent and if it will open the door to data being given to the federal government.
Peregrine’s CEO and founder, Nick Noone, previously worked for Palantir Technologies, which specializes in data analytics infrastructure for governments. Last year, the company partnered with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to use artificial intelligence to identify suspected non-citizens.
“Right now, we don’t have affordable housing for our people but yeah, let’s make life easier for Durham Police Department and ICE and whoever else wants to surveil us 24/7,” said resident Shanise Hamilton. “When we ask for funding to help our people, we get the run around, around who can do what, where and when and how.”
Rayna Rosenko called the investment into Peregrine “ludicrous” since “no one here today can promise that Durham’s policing tools and infrastructure won’t be used against us all in six months.”
A divided City Council
The City Council did not vote on the contract Thursday and is split on the idea.
Council members Chelsea Cook and Javiera Caballero said they would not support the contract in its current form, with Cook questioning what the Peregrine technology “lends itself to down the line.”
“I am not planning to support this, and it is not a statement of my distrust in our police department,” she said.
Caballero said, “I have a lot of concerns.”
“I think the success of our community safety department is in large part because of that collaborative nature of Durham’s police department. So I understand the intent behind this was not in any way malicious,” she said. “ I don’t think this is the way to go.”
Mayor Leo Williams defended the Police Department and said while the technology is not a “silver bullet,” the city must try new strategies to address the “terror” of violent crime.
“We need a task force, we need a commission, we need all these technologies,” he said. “I hope that everyone that took the time to do the research on how this is not good, go tell the mother that just lost their child. What’s the option? What’s the resource?”
Councilwoman Shanetta Burris said the city had to think of something because “people are being terrorized by gun violence in our community.”
“I’m not going to get in the practice of saying how I’m going to vote on an issue in a work session,” she said. “As it has been stated, a lot of people sometimes talk about what they don’t want, but they don’t hear voice of people who do need something to feel safe.”
The Durham City Council is expected to vote on the Peregrine Technologies contract at its next meeting in February.
This story was originally published January 23, 2026 at 5:43 PM.