A Little About Us:
Oakland Privacy is a citizens’ coalition that works statewide to defend the right to privacy, enhance public transparency and promote oversight regarding the use of surveillance techniques and equipment. We were instrumental in the creation of the first standing municipal citizens’ privacy advisory commission in the City of Oakland, and we have engaged in privacy enhancing legislative efforts with the Counties of Alameda and Santa Clara and several Northern California cities and regional entities.
As experts on municipal privacy reform, we have written use policies and impact reports for a variety of surveillance technologies, conducted research and investigations, and developed frameworks for the implementation of equipment with respect for civil rights, privacy protections and community control.
Oakland, following the unanimous recommendation of its municipal privacy commission, became one of the first municipalities in the United States to terminate a sitting law enforcement agreement between its police department and ICE.
We have been recognized for our work with a 2018 “Defender of Civil Rights Award” from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a 2019 Barlow Award (formerly known as the Pioneer Awards) from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a 2021 James Madison Freedom of Information Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Members of Oakland Privacy have presented on panels discussing surveillance technology use in forums sponsored by the California Department of Justice, RightsCon, Left Forum, HOPE Conference, Berkeley Law School, NYU Law School: Privacy Localism, Georgetown Law School: Color of Surveillance, Goldman School of Public Policy, and the Library Freedom Project/Noisebridge, among others.
Getting to Know Us:
If you’d like an introduction to what we do, here are a few resources:
This website, which has articles, documents and whatnot related to what we do:
Our next meeting announcement, on our website, which includes a short summary of projects we are working on and have worked on:
oaklandprivacy.org/next-meeting/
Our timeline, from our beginnings in the Summer of 2013. Also on our website:
You can reach us at
If you have basic questions (like what various acronyms mean, what a surveillance ordinance is, etc) please email us. (We have some acronyms defined here)
Here’s an FAQ about our surveillance regulation ordinance work:
If you’d like to make contact with us in more depth, are a reporter or similar, and/or want to speak with members of Oakland Privacy, please email us a request.
If you’d like to join our email list (several messages a day, some very technical in nature, links to articles about surveillance, action item discussions, etc), send a request.
We also have a quarterly newsletter mailing list. You might be reading this note from that list, but if you aren’t and you want to receive mail from that list, send us a request to just add you to the newsletter list.
If you’d like to come to our next meeting to check us out, please do! If you’d like to meet a few of us before the meeting (e.g., there’s a Peets a block away) we can likely arrange that. We deal in a lot of jargon and move at a fast past through our agenda, so a little introduction will likely be helpful so that you will be able to follow more easily. Send us a note.
Next meeting place/time: oaklandprivacy.org/next-meeting/