San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Do S.D. streetlight cameras cover neighborhoods equally?
More than 3,000 sensors installed citywide, which allow video to be recorded that police can access
A few years back, San Diego approved a plan to install energysaving, and money-saving, LED streetlights.
The tech world was abuzz. San Diego was deploying what was billed as the world’s largest smartcity platform, powered by thousands of cutting-edge, data-gathering sensors. The plan was to track movements of cars and people, particularly in busy urban areas. Deeper understanding of mobility could follow. Parking and traffic might be eased. Apps could be developed.
All that data-gathering required the installation of cameras on what is so far a little more than 3,000 streetlights, covering about 5 percent of the city’s public rights of way. For the public, that information came as a surprise — as did the revelation that police had access to the footage.
Many critics were wary of the system or didn’t trust it outright. They feared the existence of a mass surveillance network, which some said could lead to targeting communities of color and potential civil rights abuses. And they’ve raised questions about where the cameras were installed, how those locations were selected and whose movements are most likely to be recorded.
Police officials have said that the cameras are not live monitored, that they are accessed in
limited instances. The city said the locations were selected for mobility — traffic, pedestrian, parking, bicycle — and environmental factors, and that the selection had nothing to do with the makeup of the neighborhoods they were in.
The Union-tribune analyzed demographics in areas where San Diego’s smart streetlights are located, including nearly 230 that have been accessed by police since summer 2018.
While racial and economic disparities were not evident in the distribution of streetlight cameras across the city, a greater proportion of black residents and poor residents live in neighborhoods where smart streetlights have been accessed by police.
Streetlights across the city
In an effort to better understand the demographics of the neighborhoods containing smart streetlights, the Union-tribune mapped each light and noted which census block group it fell within. Block groups, as opposed to much larger census tracts, are small geographic zones — generally with populations between 600 and 3,000 people — as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Data show that more than 946,000 people — about two-thirds of San Diego’s total population — live in a block group where the city has placed a smart streetlight camera.
Among the city residents who live near a camera, about 46 percent are white, 25 percent are Hispanic, 18 percent are Asian and 6 percent are black. The remaining 5 percent are Native American, Pacific Islander or another race.
San Diego’s total population is about 42 percent white, 30 percent Latino, 17 percent Asian, 6 percent black, and 5 percent other races. Considering these totals, white residents are slightly over-represented and Hispanic residents are slightly under-represented in neighborhoods where the smart streetlights are located.
The Union-tribune also found that the distribution of streetlight cameras matched the city’s distribution of household incomes.
There’s a much denser concentration of cameraequipped streetlights in downtown San Diego than anywhere else in the city. There is a reason for that, according to Erik Caldwell, deputy chief operations officer for the city’s Smart and Sustainable Communities division.
The cameras are part of a system that uses artificial intelligence to track data. In downtown San Diego, the city wanted granular information about parking and mobility. That meant the cameras needed to be in close proximity to one another, in some cases less than 100 feet apart.
There are 12 census block groups in which the city placed more than 50 streetlights. All 12 are downtown.
There are about 31,000 people living in those areas. Of that number, about 56 percent are white, 23 percent are Latino, 9 percent are Asian, 8 percent are black and 4 percent are other races.
Cameras accessed by police
San Diego police praise the cameras as a gamechanger for investigating serious or violent crimes. In several cases when police accessed the cameras, arrests have followed.
Police have credited the cameras with helping them to quickly identify a suspect in a shooting last year that killed one employee and injured two others at an Otay Mesa Church’s Chicken restaurant. The cameras helped clear a man under investigation for a downtown homicide, after the footage revealed the killing had happened in self-defense.
Through the middle of February, investigators had accessed the cameras in 246 cases. Sometimes multiple cameras in an area are accessed as part of one case.
Based on information provided by police, the Union-tribune mapped the approximate locations of all but 22 of those incidents. Police did not disclose information in 19 cases, citing ongoing investigations. Another three sites provided by police listed only a street name, so the location of the incident couldn’t be placed in a census block.
About 262,000 people live in the areas where police have accessed the streetlight cameras. Of those residents, 9 percent are black, compared with the city’s overall black population of 6 percent.
Hispanic or Latino residents are also somewhat over-represented in these areas. Thirty-three percent of residents who live in areas with streetlights that have been accessed by police are
Latino, compared with the city’s Latino population of 30 percent.
White people make up about 42 percent of San Diego’s population, and Asians make up 17 percent. In areas where police accessed cameras, about 39 percent of the residents are white and 16 percent are Asian.
Other races account for 5 percent of the city’s residents. In areas where police accessed cameras, those other races make up 4 percent.
Police have accessed cameras across the city, including many downtown. In an area near the convention center, police have accessed cameras 12 times. In an area in downtown’s Core-columbia community, sandwiched between Ash Street and Broadway, investigators have accessed cameras there nine times.
These two neighborhoods also see some of the highest violent crime numbers in the city. More than 300 violent crimes, including two homicides, were reported in the Core-columbia
area between 2014 and 2018. In the area near the convention center, more than 600 violent crimes, including nearly 50 rapes and attempted rapes, were committed between 2014 and 2018.
Critics of the program say that they are interested in public safety, and argue that a move toward greater public safety shouldn’t come at the expense of privacy and civil rights. Pitting those interests against one another other is unreasonable, they argue.
“No one has ever said that we don’t want safer communities. It’s the use of this intrusive surveillance technology without proper oversight (that is troubling),” Geneviéve Joneswright with TRUST SD, a vocal critic of the program, told the Union-tribune late last year.
San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit has said he understands the concern that the cameras could be used to racially profile or otherwise discriminate against people. But he said those fears are unwarranted and stressed that there is no live monitoring of the camera footage.
“As long as there is not a crime, we are not looking at video,” he told the Uniontribune last year.
The chief said police used the cameras “very sparingly, for only the worst type of cases, very violent type of cases, or serious or fatal injury collisions.” He said they are used as “a reactive tool, as an investigative tip to lead us in the path of who is responsible for the crime. It actually lets us narrow our focus.”
Of the 224 cases about which police provided information, most involved serious crimes. The most common crimes to prompt streetlight access: fatal or serious injury collisions, robberies, assaults with deadly weapons and homicides.
Through mid-january, San Diego police accessed cameras during 23 homicide investigations.
According to the department’s smart streetlight policy, the decision to view the footage is driven by several considerations, including how serious the crime was and how significant the threat to the public.
“We are looking at incidents that have resulted in a life being lost or placed at significant risk, as well as property crimes with exceptional damages that threaten the safety of our communities,” said San Diego police Capt. Jeffrey Jordon.
Data show that the types of cases that prompt police to access streetlight footage are similar across communities. In census block groups where people of color make up 51 percent or more of the population and census block groups that were predominately white, police most commonly used streetlight cameras to investigate serious or deadly crimes, from robbery to homicide.
Dave Maass, a senior researcher for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the Union-tribune’s findings didn’t surprise him and that he has seen trends