License Plate Readers, Transparency Ordinance

BART Proposes License Plate Readers At All Parking Lots

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Update (5/20/19): Oakland Privacy follow-up letter to BART suggests a) the use of rear camera readers which capture license plates only, without collateral pics of vehicle occupants or interiors and b) limitations on access to BART ALPR data from other federal and local agencies who use the fusion center database. See full letter below.

Update (4/29/19): Ryan Devereaux at The Intercept released a story this morning confirming that a private intelligence contractor pulled information about family separation protests in 2018 off of social media, compiled a dossier and sent it to all the federal fusion centers, including NCRIC. This unconstitutional surveillance of First Amendment protected activity is unacceptable. Combined with previously revealed information about CPB and ICE blanket access to DMV records via the CLETS database, it is becoming clear that BART providing real time geolocation data to the federal fusion center is an existential threat to immigration activists, and all who engage in First Amendment-protected activities.

Update: BART approved the policy on a preliminary basis and will be running a one station pilot (station TBD), with any further expansion requiring a return to the board and a review of the policy.

SF Examiner: BART Board Approves Automated License Plate Surveillance in Parking Lots

NBC Bay Area: BART Board Approves License Plate Readers in Parking Lots

SF Gate: BART Board Approves Policy Governing Use of License Plate Readers

Mercury News: BART Revives Plan To Put License Plate Readers in Parking Lots

A proposal to be discussed at the April 25 meeting of the board of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) plans for the installation of automated license plate readers (ALPR) at all BART parking lots. On the April 25 meeting agenda, a license plate reader use policy and surveillance impact report will be presented for approval and to begin the process of mass surveillance of all BART riders who use the system’s parking areas.

The proposal would upload the data to the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), a Department of Homeland Security federal fusion center.

BART flirted with the use of license plate readers in system parking lots in 2016, when operational staff started a pilot program at McArthur BART in secret. After public protest, the Board of Directors voted to end the pilot program, but it continued despite the board vote throughout that year and 2017 and BART uploaded tens of thousands of scans to Homeland Security.

It was a bad idea then and it is a bad idea now. Here are a few reasons why.

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Facial Recognition, Transparency Ordinance

Stop Secret Surveillance SF Act

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Update: The Stop Secret Surveillance Act passed the rules committee on May 6 by a unanimous 3-0 vote! The full board will be voting on May 14th. The meeting begins at 2pm at City Hall in Room 250. Take action below to encourage the Supervisors to support it.

San Francisco’s surveillance transparency ordinance with a twist (a ban on municipal use of facial recognition software) took a giant step today towards adoption, adding two additional co-sponsors in Supervisors Hilary Ronen and Matt Haney at the April 15th Rules committee hearing. They joined Supervisors Shamann Walton, Board President Norman Yee and bill sponsor Supervisor Peskin

After a few technical amendments are noticed and the Rules committee advances the measure on May 6, a full board vote will follow, possibly as soon as May 14th.

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Data Privacy

Feinstein Says “Opt-In, Not Opt-Out”.

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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 one of the features of AB1760, the Privacy For All Act, which would strengthen California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

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Police Militarization, UASI

A Short History of Urban Shield.

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On March 14th, 2019, the Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative Approval Authority voted unanimously to take the monies for Urban Shield and other emergency preparedness programs usually distributed to Alameda County and redistribute them around the Bay Area, to San Francisco, the North, East and South Bays.

Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly said the vote by the UASI board effectively ends Urban Shield.

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Police Militarization, UASI

Urban Shield SWAT Drill and Weapons Expo Suspended for 2019

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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 exercise.

The Homeland Security funding body indicated a new RFP for a regional emergency exercise would be issued in 2019. The suspension, and practical end, of Urban Shield, follows five years of escalating community complaints about racism, xenophobia, sanctuary violations and the event’s violent scenarios.

Alameda County Board Chair Richard Valle, who attended the DHS meeting, asked Homeland Security to “forgive him for his compassion” and read aloud several of the recommendations for change, saying he had been “driven to vote for them.”

Oakland Privacy press release 3-15-2019