Caroline Haskins is a business reporter at WIRED, where she investigates the societal and ethical implications of emerging technologies. Her work often focuses on surveillance systems, corporate accountability, and labor practices within the tech industry.
Caroline Haskins is a business reporter at WIRED, specializing in the intersection of technology, corporate accountability, and societal impact. With a career spanning investigative roles at Vice’s Motherboard, BuzzFeed News, and Business Insider, Haskins has established herself as a critical voice in analyzing surveillance technologies, AI ethics, and labor dynamics within the tech industry. Her work often exposes how corporate practices intersect with civil liberties, influencing public discourse and policy.
Haskins’ career began at The Outline and Motherboard (Vice), where she honed her investigative approach. Early pieces focused on emerging surveillance tools, such as Amazon’s Ring doorbell cameras, which she revealed were exacerbating racial profiling in suburban neighborhoods. At BuzzFeed News, she broke stories about Clearview AI’s controversial facial recognition software and Palantir’s government contracts, cementing her reputation for scrutinizing tech companies’ ethical boundaries.
Her tenure at Business Insider as a senior tech reporter and research editor allowed her to dive deeper into systemic issues, including FOIA-driven investigations into federal AI procurement and labor disputes within major tech firms. In 2025, she joined WIRED, where she now examines the business strategies underpinning surveillance capitalism and AI adoption.
This 2019 investigation exposed how Amazon’s Ring doorbell cameras, marketed as crime-prevention tools, amplified racial biases and created a feedback loop of fear in suburban communities. Haskins analyzed internal marketing materials, police partnerships, and user testimonials to demonstrate how the platform encouraged residents to report non-threatening behavior, disproportionately targeting people of color. The article sparked congressional inquiries into Amazon’s data-sharing practices with law enforcement and remains a seminal work on modern surveillance culture.
Haskins revealed Ring’s aggressive strategy to embed itself into police departments through free product donations and access to its Neighbors app data. Her reporting uncovered contractual obligations requiring police to promote Ring products in exchange for user footage access, blurring the line between public safety and corporate marketing. This piece influenced later lawsuits against Ring for violating privacy laws and reshaped debates about corporate-law enforcement collaboration.
This longitudinal analysis traced Ring’s evolution from a failed startup to a cornerstone of Amazon’s surveillance ecosystem. Haskins detailed how the company leveraged fear-based marketing and lax privacy regulations to dominate the home security market, highlighting the lack of oversight in tech acquisitions. The article is frequently cited in antitrust discussions about Big Tech’s expansion into public infrastructure.
Haskins prioritizes stories that reveal how technologies reinforce systemic inequities or corporate power. For example, her Ring series examined not just the product’s features but its societal consequences, including normalized surveillance and eroded trust in communities. Pitches should similarly connect specific technologies to broader patterns—e.g., how AI hiring tools perpetuate workplace discrimination or how gig economy apps circumvent labor laws.
Her FOIA-driven investigation into Clearview AI’s federal contracts at Business Insider demonstrates her preference for evidence-based reporting. Successful pitches might include leads on undisclosed government-tech partnerships, lawsuit filings (like the Pimeyes case she covered), or whistleblower testimony about algorithmic bias in workplace surveillance tools.
While many reporters focus on innovation, Haskins consistently centers labor conditions and equity. A 2024 analysis of Amazon warehouse quotas for WIRED tied productivity algorithms to injury rates, showcasing her interest in tech’s human costs. Pitches could explore topics like unionization efforts at AI startups or the racial disparities in facial recognition accuracy.
Haskins received this recognition for her Business Insider investigation into the Department of Homeland Security’s use of Clearview AI, which revealed undisclosed contracts worth $2.1 million. The series prompted a GAO audit of federal biometric data policies and underscored her ability to extract actionable insights from complex bureaucratic records.
Multiple pieces, including her Ring trilogy, have been anthologized in collections like The State of Surveillance (MIT Press, 2023). These inclusions reflect her capacity to translate technical subjects into narratives that resonate with both academic and general audiences.
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