The City Council on Tuesday voted to overhaul San Diego’s hard-fought surveillance law, a move officials said was necessary to prevent city-wide disruptions, but that privacy advocates saw as a gutting of oversight powers.
City officials have warned for months that without amendments, San Diego’s surveillance ordinance, which created a multi-layered review process for many city technologies — from body-worn cameras to emergency dispatch systems to fingerprint scanners — could seriously impact vital operations. That’s partly because the vetting process, city officials contend, is cumbersome and time-consuming, therefore hampering San Diego’s ability to apply for grants and renew contracts for important tools.
Last week, the city unveiled a host of proposed changes, and they are sweeping.
Some recommendations exempt whole categories of technologies from falling under the law, including fixed security cameras used to monitor city facilities and powerful law enforcement databases like the Automated Regional Justice Information System, otherwise known as ARJIS, described on its website as “a complex criminal justice enterprise network used by 80+ local, state, and federal agencies” in San Diego and Imperial counties.
Other amendments change how city departments can hold community meetings to discuss surveillance technologies, how tools are going to be reviewed on an annual basis and how the city can be sued should it run afoul of the law.
One of the more controversial recommendations would have shortened the amount of time the Privacy Advisory Board — a volunteer oversight panel charged with vetting the city’s technologies — had to do its work from 90 days to 60 days. However, that change was tossed and several last-minute amendments were added during deliberations among council members following the item’s presentation.
City officials reiterated Tuesday that the amendments are intended “to give city staff clear direction on implementation and allow city staff to continue necessary operations while balancing the need for public and transparent review of surveillance technologies.”
But privacy advocates argued what’s being proposed goes far beyond addressing operational concerns, and instead strips the law of hard-fought protections meant to safeguard people’s rights and privacy.
“TRUST is calling this a wrecking ball to the ordinance,” said Seth Hall, a member of the Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology San Diego, or TRUST SD, the coalition of community groups that helped craft the surveillance ordinance. “It’s super harmful for City Council to have agreed to these transparency and responsible use rules, to have started down this path with the community, only to now turn around and pull back.
“The community, I think, feels betrayed by that backtracking.”
Scores of people echoed those sentiments during public comment Tuesday, with nearly everyone calling on council members to reject the proposed changes. Several speakers also took issue with the council’s decision to pursue amendments while the seat for District Four, which encompasses many of the city’s diverse southeastern neighborhoods, remains vacant. Former Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe, who vacated the seat when she was elected to the county Board of Supervisors, was instrumental in passing the surveillance ordinance.
“Today, we’re being told that our framework requires overhaul, but I’m concerned that the reasons don’t track,” said Mytili Bala with the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans. “If we’re really concerned about grants and making sure the city is able to apply within a timeline, why not create a specialized process for expedited review or work closely with the Privacy Advisory Board to get those technologies to you sooner?
“What the mayor’s office is suggesting today is a pretty broad and dramatic rewrite.”
Despite these objections, six council members voted in favor of the amendments. Council President Sean Elo-Rivera and Councilmember Vivian Moreno rejected the proposal.
Tuesday’s changes are the latest development in a legal process that has been rife with complexity and confusion.
The ordinance, unanimously approved by City Council last September, stemmed from public outcry over the city’s mishandling of a network of thousands of so-called smart streetlights a few years ago.
Under the law, city departments are required to disclose their surveillance technologies and compile reports outlining how those tools are used and their impact on communities. That information would then make its way to the newly created Privacy Advisory Board and then to the City Council, which would decide whether a tool should stay in use.
Since the law was passed, only one of the city’s many surveillance technologies — a police camera and license plate reader network — has gone through the entire oversight process. It took eight months.
While city officials have long contended the language of the law has made interpretation and implementation of the law difficult, some advocates contend the city’s failure to take important first steps, like providing a definitive list of all the city’s technologies — a list the city won’t have to produce until 2026 after Tuesday’s changes — or nominating someone to a long-vacant spot on the Privacy Advisory Board, has done more to stymie the process than any wording.
City Council members made it clear Tuesday that more amendments are likely to be pursued as departments continue working to implement the ordinance.
