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Friday, February 10, 2012
Police address privacy concerns over security system
by Kathleen Haley, published on April 20, 2009 at 10:38 PM
Storyline: Police / Public Safety
The Sacramento Press talked to members of the Sacramento Police Department Monday about the city’s plans to install a new $615,000 surveillance system in the coming months. Locations for the new equipment have not yet been chosen. The funding, which comes from Federal Homeland Security Grants, was awarded to the city by the state.
Sacramento Press: Can you speak to the issue of privacy concerns?
Sacramento Police Chief Rick Braziel: “The cameras we’ll put up will only be in places that are in open view to the public, so it’s no different than someone walking down the street with their videophone and taking pictures. We’re very sensitive to those issues.
In fact, early on, as we started the process, I actually met with members of the American Civil Liberties Union, when there were other issues coming up with cameras.
Any fixed cameras that we have currently that go into areas that would be considered private, we mosaic-out through software. For example, we have surveillance cameras at some of our facilities…and if they encroach in someone’s personal space, we actually mosaic that out.
But for most part, you’ll see them on K Street Mall, where areas are open to the public, and anyone can video those including the general public.”
SP: How long will you keep the video records?
Sacramento Police Department Spokesman Konrad VonSchoech said that if the police record a criminal activity on video, the department would keep the video for five years. VonSchoech said this timeframe conforms to the code for records retention.
If the video contains evidence, however, police will keep it for as long as it needs to prosecute a crime, VonSchoech said.
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What are the technical specs of this system? Will the cameras operate any better than the notoriously useless ones in San Francisco? And when the grant money runs out, how much per year will it take to operate this system? Is there audio recording attached to this system?
The iidea this will be a prison planet someday seems closer to reality day by day.
Invest in the teaching of ethics and virtue. Im not talking archaic moral codes here,
People are basicly good. Once we stop handling people like they shouldnt be there and give them a sense of purpose, a work ethic and a feeling of belonging we wont have to spy on everyone. This is lazy pure and simple.
Pie in the sky you say? Reality starts with a simple thought of what could be.
Will video be fed directly to a surveilling officer, or is it going directly to storage?
What is the Department's method of discerning whether a given fragment of video contains evidence of crime (therefore deserving of long-term storage)?
How granular will video storage be?
What issues did the ACLU raise, and were their concerns satisfied?
How will the Department discriminate between private and public spaces captured on camera, and at what point in the process are private areas obscured? At capture? After video review by an officer?
Will this video surveillance system work with identity recognition software, and does the Department have any plans to expand this surveillance into identity recognition?
Depending on where the cameras are placed, they may capture financial transactions and therefore sensitive information like PIN codes. Will those be obscured, and if so, at what point in the capture and retention process?
Thanks for your good questions. I will send them to the Sacramento Police Department.
Cheers,
Kathleen
1. We do not have the technical specs yet since the bidding process still needs to be done on the camera's. We intend for the camera's to be able to be moved to various locations within the city as needed based on crime trends or special events.
2. The cost for the system will be paid off from the grant. The main costs after that will be maintenance and the staffing to adjust and move the camera's as necessary. The main costs of these systems is really the
storage place for the information rather than the camera's themselves.
3. The 32 surveillance camera's will probably not have audio but we will see based on the camera's we get. The mobile trailers may but I am not positive.
Response to John Boyer: There are investments that we do need to make in education, family, after school programs, parks and rec etc...that are important to keep people ever from entering the criminal justice system.
Response to Ryan Sharp: 1) The video will be fed to storage, but officers will be able to get real time feed of the camera's as they respond somewhere or if there is a need such as the surveillance of a narcotics transaction by someone we are investigating. The camera's are also being used for critical incidents, natural disasters, large events so they will be monitored during those times also. 2) The video will be considered evidence if a crime has been reported and we go back and locate something that will be necessary for court or if we are actively monitoring and capture evidence of a crime that will be needed for court later.
3) Don't know yet how granular video storage will be since we have to bid still for the system that we will use.
4) I was not part of the discussion with ACLU but we have digitally covered up private residences that our current cameras would record. 5) Public spaces being streets, businesses, sidewalks, open strip malls, etc...the law defines open places vs. what is private...your driveway could be private or public depending on how much you do to keep it private ( a wall, a fence, does the mailman have access, does ups driver have access..etc...) We digitally obscure private residences before the recording based on where the camera can capture images. 6) identity recognition is not a part of the current system we are looking at and has not been discussed as an option right now. 7) The cameras really shouldn't be zooming in close enough for that information to be captured unless we are manually zooming in for an investigative purpose like trying to see if you have a gun in your waistband.
Thank you sargent for agreeing on these words of wisdom. Plus The officers watching the cameras are going to get fat which is a taxpayers burden as well..