Protesters on Wednesday issued a renewed call for San Jose to shut down its network of roughly 500 automated license plate reading cameras.
The protesters rallied at City Hall before taking their complaints before a key City Council committee that’s trying to figure out the future of Flock cameras in San Jose. Supporters of the cameras argue they are invaluable public safety tools, while critics say they’re a dangerous invasion of privacy that are already being abused by law enforcement.
Community groups represented in Wednesday’s protest have already filed a lawsuit against San Jose over the automated license plate readers (ALPRs). The protesters said a system that records so many people is a violation of privacy, adding the data can be abused to target groups or individuals.
“Surveillance is not safety,” EFF Associate Director Rin Alajaji said. “That’s why EFF and the ACLU of Northern California are suing the city of San Jose on behalf of SIREN and CAIR, because in a single year San Jose PD ran over 250,000 warrantless searches on this location data.”
Community anger recently intensified after NBC Bay Area reported a police officer had been fired after accessing ALPR data to help a family member involved in a domestic violence case. The gap between when the breach was discovered and when the officer was fired was more than a year.
“None of this was disclosed to the council when it was reviewing the rules for ALPRs, including one of the rules being that there must be disclosure when an abuse occurs,” SIREN Executive Director Huy Tran said.
The protesters took their complaints to the city’s rules committee, which was looking at two separate memos by councilmembers to revamp the ALPR system.
“We definitely need to put provisions into place to create a system that is safer with more verifications, with opportunities to make our community feel safer and trust us again,” Vice Mayor Pam Foley said.
The memos indicate officials would like to keep the cameras operating with more scrutiny, while protesters want them shut off.
The committee told city staff to come back with a plan on how to approach revamping the system. Public hearings will then be held by the full council before any final decisions are made.