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Tempe City leaders pitch Real Time Operations Center to Tempe Union board, stress privacy controls and rapid response benefits
Summary
City of Tempe officials told the Tempe Union High School District governing board they are building a Real Time Operations Center (RTOC) that would aggregate existing camera feeds (initially about 2,000) and allow operators to triage incidents and support first responders; presenters emphasized geofencing and limited access during dispatched events and said school feeds would be connected by agreement.
City of Tempe officials presented the Real Time Operations Center, or RTOC, to the Tempe Union High School District governing board, saying the system will aggregate existing camera feeds to speed triage and investigations while offering technical privacy protections.
Sean McDonald, representing the City of Tempe, described the RTOC as a "technology hub" that will use cameras already deployed across the city to give operators situational awareness that can shorten response times and help detectives review footage after incidents. "This is cutting response times significantly," McDonald said, arguing that operators will be able to view scenes and provide immediate information to officers and fire/medical responders.
Eric Jensen, IT manager for the city, said the platform being deployed (referred to in the presentation as the FUSUS system) is about 60 days from initial use and about 90 days from a larger camera rollout. Jensen said the city expects to bring in cameras from transportation and other city systems and that school districts could provide on the order of "100 to 150 per district," representing roughly 20% of the initial set of feeds the RTOC will use.
City presenters repeatedly framed the RTOC as a tool for dispatched incidents rather than continuous public surveillance. "What it is not: it is not big brother watching over you," a city presenter said, adding that the system will include rules and technical controls so partners’ feeds are not used for general monitoring.
Presenters described specific privacy and operational safeguards the city plans to use: geofencing and permanent masking to prevent operators from viewing private yards, access to school feeds only when a 9-1-1 call or other incident triggers a response, and formal agreements with partners to document permitted uses. Jensen said operators will be able to click on cameras within a radius of an incident provided by the software and begin using those camera views to assist first responders.
Board members asked for examples of how the system would operate during a school shooting and how private spaces would be protected. McDonald and Jensen said the RTOC would provide real-time information about a suspect’s location, movement, weapon and number of victims, and that technical tools (geofencing, masking) would prevent routine viewing into private yards. "If they're needing to in the camera pans, they can pan down the street to follow or look for whatever they need to do without invading that person's area," Jensen said.
District staff told the board an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) will be brought forward for consideration at the board's next meeting. Board members expressed interest in additional briefings and in written safeguards that define exactly when and how school camera access would be opened.
Provenance: City presentation and Q&A (topic introduced SEG 234; discussion and Q&A continued through SEG 689).
