Seaside council approves Placer.ai subscription despite privacy questions from residents

Seaside City Council voted unanimously Aug. 7 to authorize the city manager to enter into a licensing agreement with Placer.ai for a $27,250 software subscription to obtain aggregated location and event analytics.

City staff said the subscription will give economic development and public works real-time visitor and event metrics — for example, how many people attend an event, where attendees come from, and where they go afterward. “It will help with business recruitment and retention strategies,” Assistant City Manager Dan Veil said, adding the product provides aggregated, geofenced insights and not personally identifying information.

During public comment multiple speakers raised privacy concerns. Carla Lobo warned that while the vendor sells high-level, nonidentifying data, the capacity to reidentify information exists and litigation has followed similar data uses elsewhere. Linda Cunningham and other residents said aggregated location data are already sold commercially and argued municipal access can improve planning and grants work.

Councilmembers pressed staff for implementation details, particularly on privacy and use cases. Veil and City Manager Dan Mueller said the subscription relies on anonymized, opt-in location signals and is commonly used by municipalities for economic-development decisions. The council approved the contract with a unanimous vote.

What’s next: staff said they will integrate Placer.ai into economic development, event analysis and grant support and coordinate training for relevant departments.

Ending: The subscription will begin after contract execution; staff said they will return with operational examples and privacy safeguards as data are used for outreach, events and grant work.