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S.F. Police to Equip Officers with Smartphones, Rolls Out Predictive-Policing Tools
Summary
San Francisco Police officials announced deployment of over 1,600 smartphones to patrol and special-operations officers by year'end, with access to CLETS and a Justice Mobile app; commissioners asked about national database access and data protections for predictive-policing features.
The San Francisco Police Department announced on Sept. 11 that it will issue smartphones to all officers on patrol and in special operations by the end of the year, aiming to improve field reporting and connectivity. Chief Gregory Peasey told the Police Commission the rollout will cover more than 1,600 devices and include data plans, security hardware and two-factor authentication.
The chief said the phones will give officers access to the department's crime data warehouse, SF booking photos, department email, crime bulletins and CLETS, the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System. "We are the first department to get the Justice mobile app on this phone," Peasey said, adding that the department had to add extra security measures and that no data would be stored on the devices.
Why it matters: Commissioners said the phones could speed response times and improve community engagement but sought clarity about privacy and cross-jurisdictional access. "Is there a database that eventually we can get into that would give us information outside of the state?" asked Commissioner Kingsley. Peasey said some NCIC (national) alerts are fed into CLETS but broader national access depends on contribution and technical arrangements. He said the department had secured a favorable procurement deal with Verizon but could not avoid certain state tax costs.
The chief also described forward-looking features such as camera and video capture, secure GPS, remote-wipe capability if phones are lost, and language-translation tools. He said the department plans to explore routing IP-based internal camera feeds to a phone for real-time situational awareness.
Predictive policing and safeguards: The department described a predictive-policing application that analyzes near-term patterns from the crime data warehouse to highlight areas with an elevated likelihood of property crimes. "It will come in particularly handy with regard to property crimes," Peasey said. Commissioners repeatedly probed how predictive outputs would be used and whether they would connect to national criminal records. The chief reiterated that predictive tools rely on immediate local data and that access to national NCIC data depends on upstream data-sharing decisions.
Next steps: Commissioners requested a report on policy safeguards, privacy protections and the operational limits on predictive outputs before full deployment. The chief said a departmentwide policy was in progress and that two-factor authentication and remote-wipe tools had been required by the state for CLETS-enabled devices.
The commission did not vote on policy changes at the meeting; questions about data-sharing procedures and any formal privacy rules were referred for a future staff presentation.
