City Surveillance Watch Smart Cities Dive

Are city governments prepared to address the potential impacts and very real risks of technology with surveillance implications? Few municipalities have meaningful policy in place to address the potential impacts of these sorts of technologies.

In this, our third and final episode of City Surveillance Watch, we assess the current state of government policy and law for surveillance tech (hint: there isn’t much), and we offer practical tools and advice. Find out how municipalities that are ahead-of-the-curve are crafting surveillance tech policy, and get guidance for how cities - even those with few resources - can upgrade traditional tech procurement processes to ensure a solid footing to contend with rapidly evolving tech use and its potential impact on communities.

"People live out loud and outside, and I do have concerns that public gathering, public music — that the surveillance is going to lead to more policing of public space."

Those are the words of Ursula Price, a racial justice and civil rights advocate in New Orleans who has opposed the city’s expanding connected camera network. She’s one of the many people featured in the second episode of City Surveillance Watch, which takes listeners on a coast-to-coast journey for a glimpse at how surveillance tech is used and how it affects real people.

We’ll dig into how private funding and public-private partnerships are enabling surveillance programs — from growing surveillance camera networks in New Orleans and Detroit that stream data to police monitoring centers, to privately-funded drones and license plate readers in Chula Vista, CA and Kansas City.

We’ll look into how law enforcement in Kansas City and Mt. Juliet, TN combine data from multiple forms of surveillance tech like license plate readers, connected cameras and video from Amazon Ring security cameras. We’ll explore why some urban residents are pushing to deploy more surveillance tech on their streets and in local businesses.

And we’ll ponder a future in which privately-funded surveillance tech moves decision-making — once subject to government accountability and oversight — deeper into the shadows.

Sources featured in this episode: Jacob Becchina, sergeant, Kansas City Missouri Police Department; Ross Bourgeois, New Orleans Real Time Crime Center administrator; Renard Bridgewater, anti-surveillance activist, hip hop band leader and MC and community engagement coordinator for the Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans; Tyler Chandler, captain, Mt. Juliet, TN Police Department; Wendy Hood, parking enforcement officer, City of Eugene, OR; John McKinney, president of the Pebble Point Homeowners Association, Lebanon, Tennessee; Jeff Petry, director of administration, planning and development department, City of Eugene; Rayshaun “Raysh” Phillips, member and former fundraising chair for Black Youth Project 100 in Detroit; Jameson Spivack, policy associate, Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law; Lee Tien, legislative director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation

In this first episode of City Surveillance Watch, reporter Kate Kaye explores the inherent dichotomy of data-hungry technologies that - while promising to make cities safer and more efficient - can also be considered forms of surveillance tech. Listeners will hear from city staff and law enforcement representatives, civil liberties advocates and activists, tech providers and policy makers, about how cities are thinking about these technologies. They’ll consider risks and unintended consequences of data-centric tech, and probe the grey areas that lie between a so-called smart city and one that’s overly-surveilled.

Featured in this episode: Ginger Armbruster, chief privacy officer of the city of Seattle; Robert Berman, president and CEO of Rekor Systems; Tyler Chandler, captain, Mt. Juliet, TN Police Department; Brian Hofer, chairman Oakland Privacy Commission and executive director of Secure Justice; Wendy Hood, parking enforcement officer, Eugene, OR; Dierdre Mulligan, professor at the School of Information at UC Berkeley; Ursula Price, former director of New Orleans Independent Police Monitor; Jameson Spivack, policy associate at Georgetown Law; Lee Tien, legislative director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation

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Today, as decision makers evaluate use of "surveillance" technologies such as license plate readers, public safety cameras and smart sensors, they must balance the potential benefits of seemingly benign systems with very real risks and costs.

Reporter Kate Kaye will explore this topic in a limited three-part podcast series from Smart Cities Dive, launching January 11. Check out this sneak peek of the episodes, and be sure to subscribe to the show.