San Francisco, like many places across the country, is struggling to balance public safety with constitutional protections. — The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Supervisors in San Francisco voted Tuesday for a trial run allowing police to monitor in real time private surveillance cameras in certain circumstances, despite strong objections from civil liberties groups alarmed by the potential impact to privacy.
Supervisor Aaron Peskin, a privacy advocate who successfully passed legislation in 2019 to ban the use of facial recognition software by San Francisco police and other city departments, said they worked hard to negotiate safeguards, including strict reporting requirements when live monitoring was used and if it improved safety.Police use of private surveillance equipment has ramped up across the country as a way to deter and investigate crime.
The trial period will last 15 months, giving supervisors about a year’s worth of data to review before they decide to extend the pilot program, tweak it or kill it altogether, Peskin said. “I know the thought process is, ‘just trust us, just trust the police department.’ But the reality is people have been violating civil liberties since my ancestors were brought here from an entirely, completely different continent,” he said.
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