On June 5, 2018, the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), the Homeland Security fusion center for the Norcal region, released via a public records request the sharing report for their account in the license plate reader database LEARN-NVLS, which…
As the primary election polls were starting to close, at a bit after 9pm Pacific on June 5, the Richmond City Council completed their second and ratifying vote on the Bay Area’s first Sanctuary City contracting ordinance, by a 5-1…
35 civil rights organizations (including Oakland Privacy) joined a sign-on letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to desist from marketing facial recognition technology to the government. Public records requests reveal that the company has developed and sold a prototype product…
This Security Ledger podcast features a 15 minute interview with Robert Xiao, the Carnegie Mellon researcher who discovered the Location Smart wireless phone tracking leak.
On May 15th, the City Council of Richmond, CA voted 6-1 to enact a Sanctuary City Contracting ordinance, sponsored by Councilmembers Jovanka Beckles and Ada Recinos. The Sanctuary City ordinance (model legislation can be found here) was developed by the…
Immigration rights activists from Pasos, supported by the San Jose/Sacred Heart chapter of Showing Up For Racial Justice, visited the Livermore, CA headquarters of license plate reader manufacturer Vigilant Solutions on the afternoon of Friday, March 11. After a…
Oakland Privacy’s goal of blanketing Northern California with community control of surveillance laws is coming true. But California has 57 counties and 482 cities. What if they all implemented surveillance transparency at once? That is what Senate Bill 1186 will…
Closing the circle begun many years ago, the City of Oakland ended the Domain Awareness Center saga, quietly and on consent, by passing the strongest community control of surveillance ordinance in the nation. Beaten on the calender by Santa Clara…
KQED Forum devoted a lengthy segment to Palantir, the software engineer of the surveillance state, following a lengthy Bloomberg report on the company. Oakland (and Oakland Privacy’s) work gets a little mention partway through along with some themes we’ve encouraged…
On April 17, the City Council of Alameda voted 4-1 to have staff prepare a Sanctuary City ordinance to prevent city business and monies from going to ICE data brokers or participants in “extreme vetting”. Sponsored by Vice-Mayor Malia Vella,…