(Im)mobilizing surveillance: Transportation in human trafficking policy

Human trafficking is a federal crime and a criminal offense in every state. In the 2010s, policymakers began to enlist transportation agencies and businesses in surveillance efforts designed to identify cases of human trafficking. We provide the first documentation and comparative analysis of state government policies and actions in the transportation domain ostensibly aimed to stem human trafficking. Our work deploys critical frameworks from sociology, geography, and feminist theory to anti-trafficking efforts in the transportation sector. By making these connections, we conclude that anti-trafficking measures that heighten surveillance of transportation systems are ill advised. We discuss how such measures invite intrusions on transportation users and their privacy, particularly on mass transit. For any passengeer presumed to be a potential victim or perpetrator, ensuing privacy intrusions carry the threat of harassment, criminalization, detention, and even deportation. These intrusions and their attendant threats — even if unrealized — erode the very mobility that transportation systems are meant to offer their passengers.