YOUR SAY: POLICE CAMERAS

We wondered: San Diego police want to resume use of street light cameras and add license plate readers, saying this surveillance tech would be a crime-fighting ‘force multiplier' in an era of staffing shortages. Do you support or oppose this concept and why?

Billed by the department as a “force multiplier” in an age of staffing shortages, the cameras would include license-plate reading abilities. But if the past decade has taught us anything, it’s that we need to be more cautious about technologies that are marketed to us as purely beneficial. For example, despite the early promises of social empowerment and connection, we have all become well acquainted with how social media has poured gasoline on the flames of political division. Collectively, we failed to think it through and establish guardrails.

The camera network, police say, will deter unlawful activity, in addition to being a tool for solving crimes. This is probably true. However, it may also deter lawful activity: Members of a community who know that the police have eyes everywhere may be less inclined to participate in legitimate political protests, for example.

Similarly, surveillance cameras may stifle the work of journalists. In a friend-of-thecourt brief filed in 2022, a coalition of media outlets and activists argued that broad police surveillance, “…will predictably intrude on the news gathering process — exposing stories pursued, journalistic methods employed, and the identities of sources consulted.” Even with helpful included safeguards to minimize such risks, the mere atmosphere created by the cameras could have a chilling effect.

In any case, how can we be confident that the safeguards will hold? High-profile cyberattacks are increasingly common. In cyberspeak, a network of thousands of connected devices presents a large “attack surface,” with many potential vulnerable points. Even if sensitive information isn’t exposed in an attack, taxpayers would face losses: IBM reports that the average cost of a public sector data breach in 2022 was over $2 million.

What’s more, recent history doesn’t inspire a great deal of trust that the system will deliver merely as advertised. In the program’s first iteration, the police used it secretly,

U-T The city of San Diego had installed thousands of “Smart Streetlights” before it agreed to deactivate them in 2020 following community concerns about privacy.