Drones

London Breed’s Prop E May Violate State Law

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Proposition E on the San Francisco March 2024 ballot, sponsored by the group Safer San Francisco and championed by SF Mayor Breed, seems to violate 2021 state law (Assembly Bill 481). The ballot initiative purports to allow SFPD to use drones (unmanned aerial vehicles or UAV’s) in vehicle pursuits or active criminal investigations.

But since the adoption of AB 481, which became state law in January of 2022, drones are controlled military equipment and can only be used by CA law enforcement agencies after the governing board of the city or county votes to approve the use and an associated use policy. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors did not include drones in their annual military equipment review and approval. A local ballot intitiative cannot alter state law when the state law governs charter counties by statute and AB 481 does so.

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Video Surveillance

Video from AC Transit Tempo Platform Cameras Given to OPD and SLPD Without Court Orders

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Update: AC Transit has replied to our letter and stated they will agendize a discussion of the audit for an upcoming board meeting.

When AC Transit proposed adding platform cameras to Bus Rapid Transit platforms along East Oakland’s International Avenue, Oakland Privacy worked with community advocates and the Board of Directors to get a privacy policy in place. That privacy policy called for an annual audit.

The Oakland Observer put in a public records request for that audit and recently received a completed audit from August 2023. The audit says a better logging system is needed for video requests and documents that 42% of out-of-agency-requests from Oakland PD and San Leandro PD did not provide evidence of a court order, as required by the policy.

See the audit document below and Oakland Privacy’s letter to the Board.

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Uncategorized

Oakland Privacy’s Year in Bullet Points 2023

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Some of the things Oakland Privacy had a hand in in 2023:

  • California Fusion Center Research Project initiated by Oakland Privacy
  • Bad facial recognition state legislation killed.
  • ALPR regulation bill introduced in CA legislation and sponsored by Oakland Privacy..
  • Oakland Privacy’s letters of support and objection are quoted extensively by legislative analysts for a number of bills re: privacy, surveillance, policing and transparency.
  • Oakland will replace its aging, cruiser-mounted (but currently disabled) ALPRs with lots of new Flock fixed-location ALPRS, BUT will reduce to retention time to 30 days from its current six months to two years.
  • Newsom signs 20 bills supported by Oakland Privacy in the areas of privacy, surveillance, and governmental transparency and vetos a bill (at our request) to expand the focus areas for California’s fusion centers.
  • City of Pasadena tables a proposed cell site simulator purchase after Oakland Privacy warns them they are violating state law.
  • Oakland Privacy reveals that Kaiser Permanente is using Flock cameras in their medical center parking lots across the State .
  • ALCO Board of Supervisors agrees to end the use of scattershot munitions in the mental health housing unit at Santa Rita Jail. ALCO also agrees to re-establish drone video retention to 60 days unless entered into evidence, remove boilerplate authorization language inserted into the policy in 2021, and to add to the policy a blanket prohibition on the weaponization of drones.

2022 2021 2020 2019

Uncategorized

We’re Hiring! 2024 Privacy Rights Fellowship

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The application period ends Wednesday January 31st at midnight Pacific Standard Time. We will not be able to accept any applications after the deadline passes. We are thrilled to have so many strong candidates to choose from.

Oakland Privacy has once again been generously funded by the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment for a part-time fellow to aid us in our work and help us expand its scope.

The 2024 Privacy Rights Fellowship begins on March 1st, 2024 for a duration of one year.

This is a unique opportunity to do hands-on implementation of enhanced privacy rights and enact social change beyond research and white papers.

Please read the description and application. Forward to others who might be interested or apply yourself. Applications are due by January 31, 2024.

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Data Privacy

Why We Can’t Censor Our Way Out of Online Harms

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by Tracy Rosenberg

Online Harms Need A Structural Solution: Ham-Handed Censorship Won’t Fix It

There is no doubt about it. Internet 2.0 made some people a lot of money. The quandary of the early 2000’s of how to monetize the Internet was answered by the rise of surveillance capitalism, and those positioned to grab the data in Silicon Valley have made (and in some cases lost) vast fortunes.

But as the early 2000’s receded, it became abundantly clear that the economic miracle of the monetized Internet had grave societal harms. Not just the obvious one of the institutionalization of an oligopoly of Big Tech firms who had scaled beyond any semblance of real competition, but kitchen sink harms that included the exploitation of children and youth, sexual abuse, black markets for harmful drugs and guns and the spread of virulent disinformation.

Not surprisingly, the large-scale distribution and increasing visibility of harmful content led to desires to make the “bad content” go away, some broadly recognized as such and other more ambiguously characterized as such depending on ideology.

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License Plate Readers, Video Surveillance

Kaiser Conducting Mass Surveillance of its Members

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Kaiser Permanente has been conducting mass surveillance of its members for years and is sharing that information with law enforcement.

Public records requests and publicly-available information have revealed that numerous Kaiser Permanente facilities in California have installed surveillance cameras that capture information about every vehicle that enters a facility. The cameras function as automated license plate readers (ALPRs) but also capture an image of anything that triggers a motion sensor.

KPIX-TV Coverage – https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/kaiser-permanente-license-plate-readers-privacy-advocates-allege-not-following-sb34/

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