Dataminr
{{Short description|Artificial intelligence platform for event and risk detection}}
{{Infobox company
| name = Dataminr
| logo =
| type = Private company
| industry = Real-time information
| fate =
| predecessor =
| successor =
| founded = {{start date and age|2009}}
| founders = Ted Bailey
| defunct =
| hq_location_city = Manhattan, New York
| hq_location_country = U.S.
| area_served =
| key_people = Ted Bailey, CEO
| products = Software as a Service
| owner =
| num_employees = 950+
| num_employees_year = 2022
| parent =
| website = {{URL|dataminr.com}}
}}
Dataminr is an artificial intelligence and social media surveillance company. The company's private sector product, Dataminr Pulse, is used by corporations to monitor real-time events, and to aid with crisis response by providing playbooks, messaging tools and post-event documentation.{{cite web |last1=Knowles |first1=Catherine |title=Dataminr adds advanced capabilities to risk solution |url=https://itbrief.com.au/story/dataminr-adds-advanced-capabilities-to-risk-solution |website=IT Brief Australia |language=en |date=April 11, 2022}} Dataminr's First Alert technology is used by first responders, such as those helping to provide aid during natural disasters and other emergency events.{{cite web |last1=Tan |first1=Gillian |title=Dataminr to Discuss Funding at Over $3.6 Billion Valuation |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-16/dataminr-said-to-discuss-funding-at-over-3-6-billion-valuation?sref=5yAAc4IK |website=Bloomberg |date=March 15, 2021}} Similar applications can be achieved by data vendors such as Feedly, Semantic Visions, Raven Pack, Signal AI, and more.
Dataminr employs around 800 people and is headquartered in New York.{{cite web |last1=Yu |first1=Roger |title=Dataminr, Twitter unveil early news detection tool |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/01/29/dataminr-for-news-launched/5035717/ |website=USA Today |date=January 29, 2014}} The company has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Bozeman, and Seattle, as well as London, England, Dublin, Ireland, Melbourne, Australia, and Copenhagen, Denmark.{{cite web |last1=D'Onfro |first1=Jillian |title=AI 50: America's Most Promising Artificial Intelligence Companies |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/jilliandonfro/2019/09/17/ai-50-americas-most-promising-artificial-intelligence-companies/?sh=675d58f9565c |website=Forbes |language=en |date=September 17, 2019}}
History
Dataminr was founded in 2009 by Yale University graduates Ted Bailey, Sam Hendel and Jeff Kinsey. Dataminr came to wider notice when it issued an alert that Osama bin Laden had been killed 23 minutes faster than major news organizations.{{cite web |title=Dataminr, Twitter unveil early news detection tool |website=USA Today |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221026204331/https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/01/29/dataminr-for-news-launched/5035717/ |archive-date=2022-10-26 |url-status=live |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/01/29/dataminr-for-news-launched/5035717/}}
In 2014, Dataminr entered into a partnership with CNN and Twitter, resulting in Dataminr for News, a tool to "alert journalists to information that’s emerging on Twitter in real time."{{cite web |last1=Ha |first1=Anthony |title=CNN And Twitter Partner With Dataminr To Create News Tool For Journalists |url=https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/29/dataminr-for-news/ |website=TechCrunch |date=January 29, 2014}}
On December 30, 2019, Dataminr claimed to have detected the first signals of the COVID-19 outbreak within public social media posts.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}} The company went on to detect clusters indicating future spikes in 14 different US states.{{Cite news |last=Tangermann |first=Victor |title=Data Firm Says Its AI Predicts Where Next COVID-19 Spike Will Be |url=https://futurism.com/firm-ai-predicts-next-covid19-spike |access-date=10 March 2021}} Seven days later, all 14 states were hit hard by the coronavirus. Dataminr partnered with the UN in May 2019 to equip thousands of UN personnel with Dataminr's First Alert product for the public sector.{{cite web |last1=Vacarelu |first1=Felicia |title=UN Global Pulse, Dataminr Partnership Equips UN Teams with AI Tech to Keep Abreast of Crises |url=https://www.unglobalpulse.org/2019/07/un-global-pulse-dataminr-partnership-equips-un-teams-with-ai-tech-to-keep-abreast-of-crises/ |website=United Nations Global Pulse |date=July 1, 2019}}
Dataminr's social media intelligence contract for the FBI was taken over by Zerofox at the end of 2020.{{Cite news |title=Warnings of violence before Jan. 6 precipitated the Capitol riot |author=Aaron C. Davis |newspaper=Washington Post |date=31 October 2021 |access-date=31 October 2021 |url= https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/warnings-jan-6-insurrection/ |quote=On the last weekend of 2020, the FBI lost access to Dataminr,... But the end-of-the-year changeover limited the FBI’s understanding of what was happening online at a key juncture}}
On the morning of January 5, 2021, Dataminr allegedly warned Capitol security officials of troubling online public chatter that would soon become the January 6 riot.{{cite web |last1=Cohen |first1=Zachary |last2=Wild |first2=Whitney |title=Internal emails reveal Capitol security officials dismissed warnings about troubling social media posts before January 6 riot |url=https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/28/politics/capitol-security-emails-social-media-riot/index.html |website=CNN |date=April 28, 2021}}
In July 2021, Dataminr conducted its first M&A transaction when it acquired WatchKeeper, a UK-based geovisualization platform.{{cite web |last1=Ha |first1=Anthony |title=Dataminr's first ever acquisition is UK-based geovisualization platform WatchKeeper |url=https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/07/dataminr-watchkeeper-acquisition/ |website=TechCrunch |date=January 29, 2014}} In the acquisition, Dataminr combined WatchKeeper's geovisualized data layers with its Pulse platform to provide context around events. A few months later, in October 2021, Dataminr acquired Krizo, a real-time crisis response platform based in Copenhagen, Denmark.{{cite web |last1=Cotton |first1=Barney |title=Dataminr acquires real-time crisis response platform Krizo |url=https://www.businessleader.co.uk/dataminr-acquires-real-time-crisis-response-platform-krizo/ |website=Business Leader |date=October 15, 2021}}
Controversies
= Surveillance of law-abiding abortion rights protests =
According to reports from The Intercept, Dataminr has provided social media surveillance on lawful, constitutionally-protected pro-abortion rights protests to the US Marshals.{{Cite web |last=Biddle |first=Sam |date=May 15, 2023 |title=U.S. Marshals Spied on Abortion Protesters Using Dataminr |url=https://theintercept.com/2023/05/15/abortion-surveillance-dataminr/ |access-date=2023-05-15 |website=The Intercept |language=en}}
= Surveillance of racial justice protests =
In 2020, The Intercept released a report that police departments used Dataminr services for surveillance during the George Floyd protests, including accessing social media posts about protest locations and actions. As written in the article, "The monitoring seems at odds with claims from both Twitter and Dataminr that neither company would engage in or facilitate domestic surveillance following a string of 2016 controversies."{{Cite web|last=Biddle|first=Sam|date=2020-07-09|title=Police Surveilled George Floyd Protests With Help From Twitter-Affiliated Startup Dataminr|url=https://theintercept.com/2020/07/09/twitter-dataminr-police-spy-surveillance-black-lives-matter-protests/|access-date=2020-07-12|website=The Intercept|language=en-US}} Twitter claimed that the company was just "news alerting."{{Cite web|title=Twitter Says Its Partner Dataminr Wasn't Surveilling Protests for Local Cops, Just 'News Alerting'|url=https://gizmodo.com/twitter-says-its-partner-dataminr-wasnt-surveilling-pro-1844328988|access-date=2020-07-12|website=Gizmodo|date=9 July 2020 |language=en-us}} In response to the article, Dataminr clarified that "First Alert identifies breaking news events without any regard to the racial or ethnic composition of an area where a breaking news event occurs. … Race, ethnicity, or any other demographic characteristic of the people posting public social media posts about events is never part of determining whether a breaking news alert is sent to First Alert clients." It also said that "First Alert does not enable any type of geospatial analysis. First Alert provides no feature or function that allows a user to analyze the locations of specific social media posts, social media users or plot social media posts on a map."{{cite web |last1=Biddle |first1=Sam |title=Twitter Surveillance Startup Targets Communities of Color for Police |url=https://theintercept.com/2020/10/21/dataminr-twitter-surveillance-racial-profiling/ |website=The Intercept |date=October 21, 2020}}
= Surveillance of pro-Palestinian protests and collaboration with LAPD =
In 2025, The Intercept reported that Dataminr had surveilled pro-Palestinian protests in Los Angeles and had tipped off the LAPD to pro-Palestinian demonstrations. From October 2023 to April 2024, Dataminr had alerted the LAPD to more than 50 pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including a dozen before they had occurred.{{Cite web |last=Biddle |first=Sam |date=2025-03-17 |title=LAPD Surveilled Gaza Protests Using This Social Media Tool |url=https://theintercept.com/2025/03/17/lapd-surveillance-gaza-palestine-protests-dataminr/ |access-date=2025-03-21 |website=The Intercept |language=en-US}}