Cameras from a Different Angle
Privacy Plus+
Privacy, Technology and Perspective
Cameras from a Different Angle: This week, let’s consider a city under a new kind of neighborhood watch.
San Francisco is experiencing a rash of “smash and grab” property crimes, especially in parked cars, even in broad daylight. It’s infuriating for residents and a hard problem for the police.
A tech-industry executive named Chris Larsen has this suggestion: a private network of high-definition security cameras around the city, under the control of neighborhood groups. Mr. Larsen says he will personally pay for them - and he has, to the tune of $4 million.
Mr. Larsen provides cameras to non-profit neighborhood groups, called “Community Benefit Districts.” These groups decide where to put the cameras (with the property owners’ permission) and monitor the feeds. A separate company maintains the cameras, at Mr. Larsen’s cost. The feeds are courtroom-ready with time stamps, confirmed continuous monitoring and so on, and are kept for 30 days. The network now has about 1,000 cameras across 135 city blocks.
Apparently, the cameras have had a deterrent effect: when the cameras go up, crime seems to move down the street to blocks the cameras haven’t reached.
For an excellent article on this development, click on the following link:
The privacy implications of camera-based community surveillance are fascinating. Consider:
The effect of installing and monitoring these camera feeds is that the city’s residents, including children, will continuously be surveilled without consent.
Most privacy laws are meant to protect the personal information of a person who is being “watched” or “surveilled.” This initiative practically presumes that the “surveill-ee” is a thief without probable cause.
It is unclear (and unlikely) that anyone has identified and documented the potential privacy impact of installing and operating the cameras. As time goes on and the cameras do their job deterring crime, will these cameras continue to be the best security solution, despite their invasion of privacy interests?
What will the relationship be, among the Community Benefit Districts, the professional company that maintains the feeds, and the police? For now, the civilian groups are wholly separate from the police. But as things develop, will they become close enough to appear as agents of the state, with Fourth Amendment ramifications? Who will be responsibility for access controls and other policies and/or procedures covering the use of the cameras?
This is California, and therefore “consumers” have certain rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) with respect to their personal information. Has anyone considered compliance with the CCPA and other California laws, including how and who will respond to requests made by California residents for copies of their images captured by the cameras?
So many independent Community Benefit Districts may lead to wide variation in how the feeds are managed and controlled. It is all very “small-d democratic,” which is great in principle -- but may lead to unintended consequences, especially since these cameras and networks are usually sophisticated, and it is unlikely that anyone has thought through the associated data quality and data security risks.
At the same time, it’s unclear exactly how “democratic” this is. A property owner can say “don’t put a camera on my property,” but can a renter? A portion of renters within a building? Can one say, “don’t put one on someone else’s property that can include my property in its sight?”
Notice the differences between this and the European GDPR model, which restricts use of outdoor CCTV cameras to a property owner’s own premises, with notices that clearly informs individuals of their use of CCTV.
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Hosch & Morris, PLLC is a Dallas-based boutique law firm dedicated to data protection, privacy, the Internet and technology. Open the Future℠.