Cape Town's ShotSpotter Gunshot-Detection Network — A Cautionary Case in Unaudited Policing AI

The City of Cape Town contracted US firm SoundThinking (formerly ShotSpotter) to install acoustic gunshot-detection sensors in Hanover Park and Manenberg from 2016, later expanding coverage to other historically under-resourced, apartheid-era settlements as part of a wider 'smart safety' push that also combined the sensors with CCTV and drone footage to help police reach shooting scenes faster.
City data cited 3,893 alerts and 9,223 rounds of gunfire detected in 2024/25 (down about 30% year-on-year), and officials said more than half of all firearms recovered by city law-enforcement agencies between April and June 2025 came from ShotSpotter-covered areas, alongside a cumulative total of more than 50 arrests, 35 firearms and 400 rounds of ammunition seized.
Yet an academic review published in 2026 found no independent public audit had ever verified the system's accuracy, false-alert rate or actual effect on gun violence — all performance claims came from the city and its supplier — and noted that Chicago's own ShotSpotter contract was cancelled in 2024 after a court found fewer than one in ten alerts produced evidence of a gun-related crime. Cape Town's three-year tender ran its course in mid-2026 and the programme was placed under review as the city reset its safety-technology strategy, with critics also flagging that deployment was concentrated in poor communities with little resident consultation.

Read the full analysis: https://iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/2026-06-19-cape-towns-gunshot-detection-system-under-review-as-city-expands-safety-tech-reset/