The city of San Diego gave itself a year to evaluate the continued use of its many surveillance technologies or face shutting down a host of tools — some of which underpin vital, day-to-day operations.
And time is running out.
In September, the city’s new surveillance ordinance went into effect. The legislation stemmed from public outcry over San Diego’s attempt to install thousands of smart streetlights across the city — lights the public would learn years later could be accessed by police.
Under the ordinance, city departments were required to disclose their surveillance technologies — everything from drones to car trackers to fingerprint scanners — and put together reports outlining how those tools are used and how they impact communities. That information would then make its way to the newly created Privacy Advisory Board — a volunteer panel charged with vetting the city’s technologies — and then to the City Council, which would decide whether to sign off on whether a tool should stay in use.
Some of those technologies support daily functions across San Diego. The emergency dispatch systems that first responders rely on, body-worn cameras worn by police officers and the GPS devices trash collectors use all fall under the purview of the ordinance.
The city gave itself a year to do the work, and any technology that hadn’t moved through the steps was supposed to be put on pause until it could be reviewed. To date, not a single tool has made it through the process, and the deadline is three months away.
In an effort to avoid a citywide shutdown of critical tools, officials said this week that a proposed amendment is in the works that would extend the deadline by a year. The proposal could be reviewed by the Public Safety Committee as early as next month, city officials said.
Some criticized the move, saying the city should have worked harder to fulfill its obligations under the new rules — ones that were approved unanimously by the council last summer.
“It’s really easy to say, ‘Oh, it’s just an extension, we’ll get to everything,’ but the point of the ordinance was acknowledging the potential harms of these technologies on day one,” said Seth Hall, a member of TRUST San Diego Coalition, which helped craft the legislation.
News of the proposed amendment comes soon after police officials published reports on more than 70 technologies that fall under the ordinance. The list includes arson and sex offender registries, as well as GPS trackers for bicycles, surveillance cameras inside and around City Hall, and a genetic analyzer that detects DNA profiles extracted from evidence. Some of the technologies have been in use for decades, police officials said.
The Police Department still needs to collect community feedback on the vast majority of its technologies by holding public meetings in each of the nine City Council districts. Only then can the tools be submitted to the Privacy Advisory Board for review.
If the department held separate meetings in each district for all of its technologies, that would add up to more than 600 meetings. When still faced with the September timeline, the department had hoped to showcase all 70 or so items at once. The idea was to host the main meeting at a church in southeastern San Diego, then simulcast it to a location in each of the eight other council districts.
Police officials would be on hand at the satellite locations so members of the public could share questions or concerns.
Hall said consolidating the meetings would fly in the face of the spirit of community engagement behind the hard-won surveillance ordinance.
“Livestreaming a presentation from one central location sounds to me like something out of ‘The Hunger Games,’” he said.
“A big face on the screen telling you how the police will watch you,” Hall said. “I don’t think that is what the City Council had in mind.”
With a possible amendment on the horizon, it’s not clear what format the department’s meetings will be in or when they will be held. Department officials said this week that they intend on complying fully with the ordinance.
Other city departments also have tools that fall under the surveillance ordinance, but they have not yet been revealed. It’s unclear how many tools outside of what the Police Department has released remain or what their function is. Officials said the city is working to provide additional guidance as departments evaluate whether their technologies fall into the scope of the surveillance ordinance.
City officials said when the ordinance was approved, it did not factor in the amount of time it would take the Privacy Advisory Board to be seated and begin its work. The board was first seated in March 2023, and has held three meetings so far. The board members have spent much of their time evaluating the Police Department’s proposal to install 500 new smart streetlights, complete with cameras that double as automatic license plate readers.
If the plan goes forward, the city would become the largest in the country to use cameras and plate readers as part of a single network, police officials said.
The review process has been lengthy, board chair Ike Anyanetu acknowledged, in part because this was the board’s first go at it. Members were particularly focused on meeting every obligation under the ordinance so “concerns brought forward from the public are properly vetted ... and are properly responded to,” he said.
And there have been many concerns. Video from one meeting drew nearly 400 comments — with more than 80 percent opposed to the Police Department’s proposal.
The board expects to have a recommendation for the City Council on streetlights and automated license plate recognition technology in about a month.
Some advocates expressed concerns that opening the ordinance up to an amendment could lead to additional changes. Could, for example, the ordinance be changed to modify the scope of technologies that are impacted?
chair Ike Anyanetu
Anyanetu said the Privacy Advisory Board is not aware of any additional changes being sought.
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