Update: November 12th is the day Berkeley’s automated license plate reader policy hits the council. Berkeleyside: Berkeley Is Being Bamboozled Update: On September 4, 2019, Berkeley’s Police Review Commission, which is empowered by the surveillance ordinance to provide recommendations regarding…
A newly-released comprehensive list of ICE contracts from 2010-2018 released by Sludge has revealed a 2018 contract between the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications Agency (NLETS) and ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations. The contract document (dated September 21 2018 PR# 192118EROLESA…
On July 23, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors announced coming changes to their Use of Force (UOF) policies, partially in response to three taser fatalities at the hands of San Mateo County sheriffs in a year, most notably…
Following in San Francisco’s footsteps, the City of Oakland passed on first reading a modification of their Surveillance Transparency Ordinance that totally bans the use of facial recognition technology by the municipality. The municipal ban becomes the third in the…
The CA Legislature passed the California Consumer Privacy Act in a heated rush a year ago and just beat the clock for a planned statewide ballot initiative by a matter of hours. Consumer privacy advocates grumbled that the bill could…
by J.P. Massar Well, now you may be, like it or not. Algorithms and processing have advanced to the point where your face may be substituted, digitally, seamlessly, and essentially undetectably (aka “deepfakes”), for that of a porn star, keeping…
A coalition of privacy, civil rights and public interest groups sent a letter of concern about Facebook’s plan to introduce a digital currency. The groups say Facebook’s new cryptocurrency raises “profound questions about national sovereignty, corporate power, consumer protection, competition…
Update: On June 25, the Richmond City Council voted 5-2 not to renew their contract with Vigilant Solutions. Richmond Standard The decision by the Council represents the first Bay Area municipal contract cancelled as a result of the passage of…
In March of 2018, the small East Bay city of San Pablo delayed a $2.4 million dollar expansion of their Vigilant Solutions license plate reader surveillance system after community distress about Vigilant’s contract with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). A…
Mike Katz-Lacabe reports that Homeland Security fusion center NCRIC, the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, collected 79.2 million license plates from a variety of Northern California cities from June of 2018 to May of 2019. The City of Piedmont sent…