The Boston Police Department has recently begun using an artificial intelligence-driven social media monitoring tool, LifeRaft, as part of its efforts to identify potential threats and support investigations. According to the city’s 2025 Surveillance Technology Report, the department gained access to LifeRaft in June. The platform enables officers to search publicly available social media data using keywords, geographic filters, and other identifiers, including names, phone numbers, and social media handles.

LifeRaft is one of three social media monitoring tools currently employed by the department, alongside Site Intelligence Group’s Sourcefeed and Chorus Intelligence Suite. Collectively, these tools cost approximately $130,000 in 2025 and have been credited with aiding in over 30 sexual assault investigations, as well as the arrest of a suspect involved in violent threats against elected officials last year.

Use of these technologies is confined to a select group within the Bureau of Intelligence and Analysis, which oversees the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC)—a fusion center coordinating information sharing among local, state, and federal agencies and partially funded by the Department of Homeland Security. The department’s spokesperson indicated that about 10 specially trained officers use LifeRaft regularly to address the growing presence of criminal and threatening behavior online, emphasizing the necessity of using such tools in ways that uphold public trust and constitutional policing.

However, the deployment of LifeRaft and similar tools has sparked debate among city council members, civil rights advocates, and community organizations. Two Boston councilors criticized the department for not informing or seeking approval from the city council before acquiring the new software, citing an ordinance that mandates disclosure of new surveillance technologies. Concerns have also been raised over the frequent invocation of "exigent circumstances" in the past, which allowed the department to bypass council approval when adopting prior social media monitoring tools.

Councilor Julia Mejia underscored the need for transparency and accountability, expressing skepticism about whether such technologies consistently enhance public safety for all communities. Councilor Ben Weber, a member of the city’s Surveillance Oversight Advisory Board, called for possible amendments to the surveillance ordinance to improve oversight of future technology acquisitions.

Civil liberties groups caution that despite social media content being publicly accessible, broad surveillance tools risk infringing on privacy rights and chilling free expression. Rachel Levinson-Waldman, national security program director at a nonprofit public policy institute, noted that LifeRaft’s AI capabilities include “sentiment analysis,” designed to assess public perception and detect early signs of hostility or aggression online. She warned that such analyses can be prone to misinterpretation and potentially lead to targeting individuals based on their political beliefs or ideologies.

Local advocacy organizations, such as the Muslim Justice League, have voiced longstanding concerns about the fusion center’s surveillance practices. Fatema Ahmad, the group’s executive director, cited past controversies over the use of social media monitoring tools to track Arabic phrases and Black Lives Matter-related content, raising fears about profiling based on race, religion, or political expression. The department maintains that its use of social media monitoring is restricted to criminal investigations and does not permit tracking individuals solely based on protected characteristics unless connected to criminal activity.

LifeRaft’s vendor emphasized that the platform does not provide covert access to private messages, accounts, devices, or location data and is intended to identify publicly disclosed risks to people, sites, and events. The company described the tool as a threat intelligence platform used by security teams rather than for persistent surveillance of individuals.

The Boston Police Department’s expanded use of AI social media monitoring tools occurs against a backdrop of prior public backlash; a decade ago, the department abandoned a $1.4 million plan for social media surveillance following civil rights concerns. In recent years, rapid adoption under exigent circumstances during heightened threat periods—including ahead of the 2024 elections—has reignited discussions on balancing public safety with privacy and civil liberties. City officials have pledged ongoing collaboration with council members to address concerns around transparency and safeguards related to surveillance technology.