Community rallies against expansion of surveillance technology as City Council postpones decision | City Government

After a contentious seven-hour-long Berkeley City Council meeting Tuesday night that ended past 1 a.m., primarily regarding the renewal and expansion of the city’s surveillance equipment contract with Flock Safety, the council postponed final decisions until June 2. 

Public comment saw more than 90 speakers, with the overwhelming majority opposing the city’s contract with Flock. Commenters in person and online expressed safety concerns due to reports of unauthorized data access or illegal sharing of data with federal agencies in other cities.

“As you have seen, Berkeley residents are strongly opposed to this contract, so we have to ask, for those who do vote to move forward with Flock, who do you represent?” said one public commenter. 

In addition, District 1 Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani introduced an urgency item initiating the renaming of Berkeley’s César Chávez Park after recent allegations of sexual abuse of minors that have surfaced against him. On Tuesday, the City Council also approved the appointment of Kathy Lee as the Interim Director of Police Accountability. 

During the meeting, a group of city staff presented in favor of renewing the city’s Flock Safety contract for automated license plate readers and adding first responder drones, fixed surveillance cameras and Flock Nova criminal investigations software to the contract. They also advocated for allowing businesses with security cameras to give the police department access to their footage.

City staff, including Berkeley Police Chief Jen Louis, cited the efficiency gains from using Flock drones for police, fire and medical emergency response, given the city’s budget deficit and understaffed police department. According to city staff in the meeting, Flock Safety offers the most centralized services, facilitates inter-city collaboration across Alameda County and has protections consistent with Berkeley’s sanctuary city ordinance and state privacy law.

According to Berkeley Police Accountability Board Vice-Chair Leah Wilson, the board, which currently has only four of its intended nine members, was only given 24 hours to review the city’s Master Services Agreement with Flock.

PAB recommended that the council defer action, citing a lack of information about the vendor selection process, the impact of combining four Flock technologies into one integrated system and the comprehensive experiences of other cities with Flock.

“This development represents the largest surveillance expansion in the city’s history, and it deserves careful and deliberate consideration,” Wilson said. “Unfortunately, speaking as your Police Accountability Board, this has not occurred. This decision is too important to be rushed.” 

The PAB proposed evaluating the entire surveillance system, renegotiating the contract to financially protect the city and imposing standardized notification from the police department to Council about any information requests from federal agencies. 

“Imagine if a disclosure leads to an immigration enforcement action against a Berkeley resident,” Wilson said. “They are detained, deported, their family is separated. Do you feel that $150,000 is a sufficient remedy for that violation?”

Following recommendations from the PAB, council members introduced their own supplementals to the agenda item. Councilmembers Mark Humbert, Shoshana O’Keefe, Terry Taplin and Kesarwani proposed adopting the Flock Safety agreement with certain additional requirements, such as increasing the financial penalty for unauthorized data sharing from $75,000 to $150,000 and establishing a termination for convenience right. 

“I understand and can respect the argument that any marginal risk in this regard is too much,” Humbert said. “My view, though, is that our residents face public safety risks every day. … I believe that with the right amendments and with the ability to swiftly exit this agreement for any reason … we can provide adequate risk protection to get these risks down to a level where they are outweighed by the public safety benefits.”

District 3 Councilmember Ben Bartlett proposed a $1 million violation provision for unauthorized data sharing. 

Mayor Adena Ishii followed by introducing a supplemental co-authored by District 7 Councilmember Cecilia Lunaparra and co-sponsored by District 4 Councilmember Igor Tregub in which she proposed a rejection of the Flock contract. 

“What we have suggested here overall is that we reject the contract specifically with Flock,” Ishii said, receiving cheers from the audience.