Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has decided to allow police to expand their network of surveillance cameras.
Cameras in the Stadium District will be turned on immediately, and new cameras will be installed in the Central District and Capitol Hill over the next several months.
The expansion was approved by the Seattle City Council last year, but Wilson pumped the brakes after taking office because of concerns about breaching civil liberties and the possibility of camera footage falling into federal authorities’ hands.
Wilson has since faced significant pressure from both supporters and opponents of surveillance cameras.
At a news conference Tuesday, Wilson said she thinks it is possible to strike a balance.
“Seattle does not have to choose between taking crime seriously and taking civil liberties seriously,” Wilson said.
Wilson stressed that Seattle’s cameras aren’t Flock cameras. They’re managed by a company called Axon, which Wilson said has a more “responsible record.”
Wilson’s announcement comes one day after the release of an audit of Seattle’s surveillance policies by researchers at New York University School of Law’s Policing Project. The audit, which Wilson commissioned earlier this spring, found “important gaps” and “shortcomings” in the police department’s surveillance policy.
The audit made 19 recommendations, many of which Wilson said the city plans to incorporate. That includes creating a public dashboard on how the cameras are used and stronger rules about data retention, permissible uses and requests for footage from outside agencies.
Wilson said the suite of recommendations will “strengthen our protections, ensure we have transparent policies and mitigate risk of improper usage.” But she acknowledged that some level of risk will always remain.
“Risk is often hard to quantify and can never be fully eliminated,” Wilson said. “It must be balanced and appropriate and carefully assessed on an ongoing basis.”
Wilson said cameras can strengthen police capacity in responding to incidents, enhance situational awareness and increase manpower in handling investigations. At the same time, she acknowledged there have been incidents in other parts of the country where the technology has been misused, including situations involving officers using surveillance cameras to stalk current or former romantic partners.
Seattle’s interim police chief, Andre Sayles, said he is committed to making sure the technology is used responsibly.
“Like you, I get frustrated when I hear of government agencies misusing camera technology,” Sayles said. “Our commitment is concrete, clear safeguards on how the system is used, regular auditing, public engagement and notice before any camera expansion, ongoing partnership with technology and civil liberty groups.”
News of the expansion came as a disappointment to anti-surveillance activists such as AJ Randall, a member of the Community Not Cameras Coalition. Randall said he supported Wilson’s mayoral campaign in part because she seemed opposed to police surveillance. He accused her of “backsliding” on that commitment.
“For me and many people in the community, we feel like this is being jammed down our throats whether or not we want it,” Randall said. "That's not a good feeling for our progressive mayor that we worked so hard to get into place.”
Randall said he was bothered by the lack of safeguards when other anti-surveillance activists toured Seattle’s Real Time Crime Center where police can access camera footage earlier this year.
“There’s no real accountability system for SPD,” Randall said.
Bob Kettle, chair of the city council’s Public Safety Committee, praised the mayor’s decision. He noted that the number of cameras in Seattle will still be low compared to other similarly sized cities.
“Partly that’s a reflection of Seattle values in terms of the balance between public safety and civil liberties and privacy,” Kettle said. “It’s also a reflection of: We were very specific where we button these CCTV cameras. That was not by accident.”
Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck said the audit from New York University identified gaps in policy and affirmed that there “that there are major considerations and concerns related to civil liberties.”
Rinck said she is glad the mayor will be implementing the recommendations in the audit but that she wished the city would “get our own house in order first and address these recommendations" before moving forward with the expansion.
