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Board adopts guiding principles and directs six-month work group on emerging public-facing technologies
Summary
The Board unanimously passed a resolution asking the city administrator to convene a six-month working group to develop permitting and regulatory recommendations for emerging technologies that operate in public space. Supervisor Yi said the measure grew out of automated-delivery legislation and cited scooters, dockless bikes, security robots and
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution establishing guiding principles for future legislation regulating emerging technologies deployed in public space and urged the city administrator to convene a six-month working group to develop permitting and regulatory recommendations.
"We are all acutely aware of the motorized scooter share programs and the stationless bike startups that's been happening in the last few months," Supervisor Yi told the board during discussion of Item 38. "These pervasive mobile instances of emerging technology in our city must accommodate the most vulnerable persons, including seniors, children, and those with limitations. San Francisco welcomes and encourages emerging technology. But as a city we must ensure that the technologies provide common good measured in identifiable ways and that they are safe and appropriate."
Supervisor Yi framed the resolution as a broad, industry-agnostic approach that would begin with mobility technologies but extend to other sectors that touch public infrastructure, including utilities, health services and private-public partnerships. The resolution directs the city administrator to form a working group to develop recommendations for a regulatory and permitting process for technologies that operate in or interact with city infrastructure, and to ensure equity, safety, privacy and data-security standards are considered in permit conditions.
Yi said the resolution was informed by earlier automated-delivery device legislation and by constituent complaints about sidewalk obstruction, privacy and the use of public infrastructure by large private companies. "A multi-billion-dollar global tech corporation utilizing publicly funded infrastructure or replacing jobs to enrich themselves does not align with common-sense notions of fairness," Yi said.
The board adopted the resolution unanimously; Supervisor Yi thanked the Rules Committee and colleagues for their cosponsorship.
Provenance
- Topic introduction: transcript block beginning at 965.73004 where the sponsor introduced the resolution and summarized its goals. (block_id "965.73004", local_start 0, local_end 450, evidence_excerpt provided).
- Topic finish: transcript block beginning at 1251.06 where the clerk announced the resolution adopted unanimously "Without objection, the resolution is adopted unanimously." (block_id "1251.06", local_start 0, local_end 20, evidence_excerpt provided).
