As a member of the Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology (TRUST) Coalition, DSA San Diego members worked to help pass the TRUST ordinance in the city of San Diego. This ordinance grants that the public should be informed of and have transparent discussion related to the city’s acquisition and use of surveillance technology.
In 2023 the Privacy Advisory Board officially recommended to city council that SDPD’s surveillance use policies for Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPR) cameras be rejected, finding that their policies failed to follow the TRUST surveillance ordinance and failed to protect the rights of San Diegans.
Two years later we can see that the Privacy Advisory Board has been vindicated in that recommendation as the SDPD’s annual surveillance report shows no care for being transparent to the public. The SDPD has been unwilling to independently verify the ALPR system’s effectiveness and misuse, and are unwilling to be transparent about other harms or near term fiscal costs.
This type of technology has repeatedly been used throughout the United States’ history to target our communities. This can be seen in the intrusive monitoring of Muslims, in abortion seekers being identified and criminalized in their home states, in protesters (from BLM to pro-Palestine) being brutalized, and in our immigrant communities being ripped apart and deported.
Given the Trump administration’s actions and their blatant disregard for the law or the courts, surveillance technology and the data it collects is especially dangerous right now. It is inevitable that the federal administration or ICE will attempt to access this type of data to continue their efforts of terror through deportation, no matter what our state or local laws are. We must protect our communities by wholesale preventing the chance for this surveillance data being abused by either local or federal agencies.
Further, surveillance is a profit mill for Trump ally Peter Thiel whose Founders’ Fund invested in San Diego’s Flock system and allied companies such as Palantir.
A vote for ALPR is a vote for Trump and Thiel’s digital dragnet. As such we call on the San Diego City Council to force the SDPD to end their use of ALPR technology, to delete all of their current ALPR data, and for them to immediately cease sharing all ALPR data with other government agencies.
