Support for SD City Surveillance Technology Oversight Ordinance
Published on 6/20/2022
E-Comment to San Diego City Council:
The League of Women Voters of San Diego recently completed a comprehensive study on police surveillance, which resulted in adoption of a position that cities should enact privacy and technology-use ordinances to protect privacy and other civil liberties. We believe such ordinances should include requirements for audits of specified policy and data in an annual surveillance report that is publicly available and evidence of crime-prevention effectiveness, civil rights impact, fiscal costs, and source of funding for surveillance technology.
We ask Councilmembers to pass this ordinance to bring oversight and transparency to the surveillance tools that are used, while respecting San Diegans’ privacy. Two years of community work should not be dismissed by gutting the ordinance with last minute changes. SDPD's proposed amendments are of grave concern in a post-Roe world. Any amendment that excludes unvetted surveillance technologies exposes people in San Diego to reproductive surveillance and we urge councilmembers to vote no on such amendments.