surveillance

We stress the importance of outlining a clear commitment to informing where ALPRs will be located, as well as evidence that these devices are making progress toward bias-free crime detection. 

Ensuring a device per person pales in comparison to the challenge of ensuring every person’s data privacy, and their ability to seek redress, is protected.

Banning facial recognition technology, yet considering exemptions for certain locations of said technology, is hypocritical, to say the least.

Data from the Oakland Police Department showed that license plate readers were disproportionately dispatched in low-income communities and communities of racial minorities. This can create a “chilling effect” on the freedom of expression of minority groups. And it can reinforce already stigmatized communities by creating a “feedback loop” in which police are repeatedly sent to a particular neighborhood regardless of that neighborhood’s true crime rate.

Berkeley City Council voted to direct revenue generated by development projects near campus toward housing for extremely low-income or homeless college students during its regular meeting Tuesday evening.

We are not opposed to the creation of what is, after all, a voluntary registry. But the language describing such an undertaking is vague thus far. It must be determined whether those registered would be asked to waive their rights of self-incrimination or whether police would be able to bypass the need for a warrant or subpoena in order to obtain footage from registered devices. Live feed should not be supplied to law enforcement, as there can be no expectation of privacy or control of the footage in that circumstance.