At the May 14 meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the City of SF became the 10th jurisdiction in the country to adopt a comprehensive oversight protocol for the acquisition and use of surveillance tech. The 8-1 vote…
Author: Tracy Rosenberg
Reining in License Plate Readers
The use of automated license plate readers by law enforcement agencies has become ubiquitous over the last decade. It is probably the most extensive mass surveillance program in the United States. The terrabytes of car images, of whch 99.5% or…
City of Oakland Privacy Principles
UC Berkeley’s legal clinic has worked with numerous stakeholders to prepare a privacy principles document and implementation guide for the City of Oakland. Here are the final drafts of both documents.
BART Proposes License Plate Readers At All Parking Lots
Stop Secret Surveillance SF Act
San Francisco’s surveillance transparency ordinance with a twist (a ban on municipal use of facial recognition software) took a giant step today towards…
Using Criminal Databases On Observers: Urban Shield and CLETS
On April 12, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Media Alliance filed a request for investigation into possible misuse of the CLETS database and a request that the agency cease all similar background checks on journalists and advocates engaged in oversight…
Feinstein Says “Opt-In, Not Opt-Out”.
At Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Hearing on consumer privacy regulation, California’s senior Senator Dianne Feinstein called for affirmative opt-in requirements for sales of consumer data, rather then the more conventional ability to opt-out. The change to an affirmative opt-in requirement is…
Urban Shield SWAT Drill and Weapons Expo Suspended for 2019
At the March 14 meeting of the DHS Approval Authority in Dublin, the Urban Shield SWAT drill and weapons show was suspended for 2019, after the Alameda County Board of Supervisors endorsed a 60-recommendation package to demilitarize the disaster preparedness…
Operation Stonegarden – Police On The Border Post SB 54
The Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project is a public records project that seeks to find out and transparently report on surveillance equipment in use in the State of California. The project has filed over 200 public records requests with…
SF’s Stop Secret Surveillance Act
This spring, the city of San Francisco will consider Oakland Privacy’s signature surveillance transparency regulation legislation, but with a twist. The Stop Secret Surveillance Act, introduced on January 29, 2019 by Supervisor Aaron Peskin and Board of Supes prez Norman…