In a busy surveillance day at the Oakland City Council, the council approved a use policy for drone use in Oakland. The city currently does not own any drones, but has borrowed from the stable of drones owned by the Alameda County Sheriff. The approval of the use policy means that use would no longer trigger an individual exigent use report each time it happens, but would just be reported on annually. The City Council also mandated that the city’s general fund not be used to purchase drones, so it is expected that the city will pursue drone purchases with an upcoming COPS or UASI grant funding cycle.
The Council also also approved revisions to the surveillance transparency ordinance approved in 2018 that would expand the existing facial recognition ban to include allied forms of biometric surveillance and make official that the use of predictive policing software like Predpol would not be used in Oakland. The city had already declared that it would not use Predpol and similar predictive programs in 2015.
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