Five years ago, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to require police and other agencies to seek approval from elected officials before using new methods of technology to conduct surveillance. But a lawsuit says the city has ignored its law for at least four years and allowed officers to use whatever surveillance techniques they choose.
“Police surveillance technologies may help reduce crime,” lawyers for the nonprofit Secure Justice said in a suit filed last week in San Francisco Superior Court. “But they also pose a clear and present threat to the civil liberties of the citizens of San Francisco.”
The technology is “controversial and error-prone,” particularly for racial minorities, the suit said. It said one study found a 35% error rate in identification of darker-skinned women.
The San Francisco ordinance took effect in June 2019 and similar measures have been adopted by many other local governments, including Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda. It requires police and other agencies using facial recognition technology to notify city officials of the technology they were already using, and to obtain approval from the Board of Supervisors for any new methods they planned to use.
Four years ago, the suit said, the San Francisco Police Department "quit complying with the Surveillance Ordinance and has not submitted to the (Board of Supervisors) any further proposed use policies for pre-existing technology.”
Secure Justice said it identified 42 recognition technology programs in June 2023 that had not been approved by city officials, and asked for an explanation but received no reply. Police Chief Bill Scott confirmed to the city’s Committee on Information Technology in January 2023 that his department was using technology the Board of Supervisors had not approved and attributed the actions to two officers, the suit said.
The Chronicle reported in 2020 that San Francisco police may have sidestepped the ordinance by using technology from a regional law enforcement agency, not covered by the law’s disclosure requirement, to investigate an illegal-gunfire case. Then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin said he was uncertain about using such evidence in a criminal prosecution.
While the ordinance allows police to continue using unapproved surveillance methods for a short period while they seek approval, that is not a “a get-out-of-jail-free card, wherein a guilty party can merely promise to do better next time by simply posting a notice and promising not to do it again,” Mitchell Chyette, a lawyer for Secure Justice, said in the suit.
He said the courts should review any San Francisco criminal cases that may have been prosecuted with the aid of unapproved surveillance technology. The suit also seeks a court order halting the city’s use of facial recognition technology, and an audit by the San Francisco Department of Police Accountability or the city controller’s office of all technology-assisted prosecutions for the last five years.
The Police Department declined to comment on the suit and referred questions to City Attorney David Chiu’s office. Alex Barrett-Shorter, a spokesperson for Chiu, said the office had not yet received the suit and had no immediate comment.
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