{"id":437604,"date":"2025-12-10T10:18:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T10:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/437604\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T10:18:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T10:18:16","slug":"san-diego-city-council-votes-to-keep-surveillance-camera-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/437604\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego City Council votes to keep surveillance camera network"},"content":{"rendered":"

A split San Diego City Council voted Tuesday to approve policies regarding several police technology tools, including its controversial network of automated license plate readers.<\/p>\n

The vote came as the council reviewed 54 surveillance technologies that police use, which also include cameras officers wear on their uniforms, SWAT robots and other tactical equipment, and cameras on streetlight poles.<\/p>\n

The council split 5-3 to approve policies related to the continued use of automated license plate readers, with one councilmember absent.<\/p>\n

The license plate readers, from provider Flock, emerged as the most polarizing<\/a>. Police praise them as crime-fighting tools, while opponents fear they provide mass surveillance and endanger communities rather than protecting them \u2014 particularly amid the Trump administration\u2019s immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the current federal administration, these systems pose a risk of misuse, and their impact on my communities can be very significant,\u201d Councilmember Vivian Moreno said.<\/p>\n

Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera spoke of the loss of trust in using the technology. \u201cEntire communities are being given legitimate reason to fear their own government, and that fear grows by the day. \u2026 But we can mitigate it, and we can do things to not make them feel even more scared,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Councilmember Marni von Wilpert listed several cases in which the plate readers helped solve crimes. \u201cI cannot, in good conscience, take away a factual, evidential tool to prevent crimes and keep San Diegans safe on the theoretical possibility that this government \u2014 which is doing atrocious things, I agree \u2014 could access our data,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

San Diego\u2019s network consists of about 500 surveillance cameras and automated license plate reader technology on streetlights throughout the city. The readers capture license plates of vehicles in their view, as well as time, date and location. Data is deleted after 30 days, unless it\u2019s part of an active investigation.<\/p>\n

The readers are a package deal with surveillance cameras placed in streetlights \u2014 they are not a separate feature \u2014 and turning off the readers would not save any money if cameras stay on. The cameras are run by a company called Ubiquia, which contracts with Flock to handle the readers.<\/p>\n

Councilmember Henry Foster III raised concerns that the now-retired San Diego police captain<\/a> who handled the contract has since gone to work for Flock \u2014 which many opponents also highlighted. \u201cI just think that is totally inappropriate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

San Diego police said that since the system was launched, they have recovered $6 million in stolen property, including more than 400 vehicles, and said the tech also helped solve four homicides last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing for us to hide on this. I want to be open and transparent,\u201d San Diego police Chief Scott Wahl said. \u201cThis is an effective tool to help us fight crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

A strict surveillance ordinance San Diego passed two years ago requires the council to review each year all surveillance the city uses with an eye toward civil rights. Tuesday\u2019s meeting marked the first review under the ordinance.<\/p>\n

Scores of people turned out, and the council heard more than three-and-a-half hours of public comment. Several speakers pointed to concerns of mass surveillance and fears that San Diego\u2019s data will be accessed by the federal government, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and turned against residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that if the City Council approves this item, that they will be irreversibly aligning themselves with the values of the current federal administration in a time where San Diegans are more and more affected by ICE crackdowns and raids,\u201d speaker Tristan Beery said.<\/p>\n

California law bars police from sharing their license plate data with out-of-state or federal agencies. San Diego goes beyond that \u2014 no one outside the city is allowed to access its data. San Diego police said there is no evidence that San Diego\u2019s data has been accessed for immigration purposes.<\/p>\n

A Flock representative said it has not received any federal warrants seeking San Diego\u2019s data.<\/p>\n

Many speakers weren\u2019t buying that the data cannot be accessed or shared, and some said they distrusted Flock.<\/p>\n

\u201cA vote to continue Flock contracts put more San Diegans at risk of being harmed by a federal administration that is focused on targeting and criminalizing our communities,\u201d speaker J\u2019nyka Faulkner said. \u201cThere is no real way to protect our data from getting in the hands of federal immigration enforcement with Flock.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaker Satomi Rash-Zeigler said license plate data \u201ccan reveal where we worship, where we visit, what protests we attend, what communities we belong to. This information in the hands of bad actors puts our families, our neighbors, our communities at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

One woman identified herself as a teacher and said a 12-year-old student had an anxiety attack when she noticed an ALPR camera near the school. She was scared about her grandmother driving under the camera due to her immigration status. \u201cI could not minimize her fears or say she was overreacting,\u201d the woman said.<\/p>\n

Some speakers, however, supported the technology, including a woman who told the City Council her mother had been killed in a hit and run that remains unsolved. She called the plate readers \u201ca game-changing, life-saving tool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another supporter said there has been a rash of break-ins and thefts in his new housing community in Otay Mesa. \u201cIt might not be the crime of the year, but it\u2019s a crime that matters to each and every one of my fellow neighbors and homeowners,\u201d the speaker said. \u201cTaking tools away from our overworked, underpaid, understaffed police officers is not okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chief Wahl told the council that his department worked closely with the city advisory board designed to review surveillance tech. Several changes were made to tighten the policy and how police share the information with the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expanded auditing, we\u2019ve improved public reporting and we\u2019ve tightened data-sharing rules. Those changes were not symbolic. They directly addressed concerns raised by residents and by this council,\u201d Wahl said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A split San Diego City Council voted Tuesday to approve policies regarding several police technology tools, including its…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":437605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,5295,1370,728,50,3549,3550,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-437604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-san-diego","16":"tag-san-diego-county","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-top-stories-sdut","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115694764629078647","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}