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Committee keeps three surveillance-technology impact reports in committee, approves drone use report
Summary
Councilors praised police cooperation on surveillance-technology impact reports but asked for clearer data-retention and legal-sharing standards; they kept ball-camera, thermal/monocular, and under-door-camera STRs in committee for revision and recommended approval of the high-school drone STR.
The committee reviewed four surveillance-technology impact reports submitted by the administration: mini ball cameras, thermal-imaging/monocular systems, under-door cameras, and an unmanned aircraft system (drone) use at the high school. Councilor Ewen Kampen said the STRs appear modest in privacy risk compared with larger systems, but Councilor Davis pressed departments for clearer written standards governing when footage would be downloaded, stored, or shared.
Police representatives explained that devices normally store video locally and that cloud subscriptions were not being purchased; Lieutenant D’Oliveira said footage can be downloaded and placed on a secured computer controlled by the SRT commander and retained only when an investigation or DA request requires it. Captain Sheehan and others committed to revising the STRs to explicitly state the legal standard for release (for example, pursuant to a warrant, DA request, or subpoena) and to clarify storage and deletion timelines.
Given those requested clarifications, the committee elected to keep the three STRs (ball camera, thermal/monocular, under-door camera) in committee for revised submissions and marked the drone STR (use for a high-school inspection) recommended for approval. Chair Scott said the surveillance-technology ordinance’s exigent-circumstance provision would permit necessary emergency deployment between now and any future formal update.
