The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday to grant the police department access to private cameras in real time, a move that will give them more power to investigate crimes.
A one-year pilot program that will allow police to monitor footage from private cameras was approved by the vote. The San Francisco Police Department will not have continuous access to the cameras, but will be able to access them under certain circumstances. If there is no suspicion that a crime has been committed, the SFPD will be able to access private camera footage.
The entire city is given the ability to be live surveilled indefinitely by this law.
The new measure was strongly criticized by civil liberties groups such as the EFF and the American Civil Liberties Union. The wide range of crimes that could cause a camera to be activated would allow blanket surveillement at almost any time.
The law gives the San Francisco Police Department the ability to put the entire city under constant watch.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed said that the new legislation was necessary in order to increase public safety in the city.
Breed said that residents and small businesses wanted them to focus on keeping San Francisco safe. There is a need to give our police officers another tool to address public safety challenges and to hold those who break the law accountable.
Wealthy private individuals are able to increase police surveillance capacity without being monitored. According to a report in Protocol highlights, Chris Larsen has spent over $4 million on security cameras in San Francisco.
According to a San Francisco native, tech had contributed to the disparity and problems that we see in San Francisco today, but said that investing in schemes like the private surveillance initiative would improve community safety.
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