On November 10, 2020, the City Council of San Diego unanimously voted to approve two ordinances – one that would establish a Privacy Advisory Board inspired by Oakland, and a similar Oakland-inspired surveillance vetting framework appropriately entitled the Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology, or TRUST. The two ordinances previously received unanimous votes in July from the Public Safety Committee and Rules Committee.

The eighth largest municipality in the country, San Diego is also a notable military and border city with a sizable technology sector, and a number of surveillance and military equipment vendors are located in close proximity.

It is no accident that San Diego looked to Oakland for inspiration – both cities rolled out city-wide surveillance technology without adequate community input or informed decision making, countless mistakes were made, and the resulting disaster created an opening for reform.

In 2013, the city of Oakland stunned the public when it presented a proposal for a $12MM citywide surveillance apparatus called the Domain Awareness Center that would include automated license plate readers, ShotSpotter, 700+ cameras, and comingled data sharing with federal and state agencies. Even though the technology was in its infancy, staff was proposing the use of facial recognition surveillance. Oakland’s timing couldn’t have been worse – the proposal became public two weeks after Edward Snowden hit the front pages of newspapers around the globe. However, the opportunity created by the public outcry led to a privacy advisory body of citizen subject matter experts, and the most robust surveillance technology vetting framework in the country.

Apparently San Diego didn’t get the memo. Declaring itself a “smart city” leader, city staff introduced in 2016 a “Smart City Streetlights” program that can only be rightfully declared a boondoggle of epic proportions. As the very many stories written by Voice of San Diego’s Jesse Marx have revealed, city staff failed to account for ongoing costs, had no clear rules for use, and the police department repeatedly misinformed the public and the City Council about their own use of the data from the streetlights.

The mission creep has been significant. A program intended to save the city millions of dollars due to more efficient lighting will likely end up costing the taxpayers at least a few hundred thousand if not millions in cost overruns, the private entity owns the data and can repurpose if it it so chooses, the environmental and traffic metrics that were supposed to be of great use for city planning have completely failed to materialize, and the financial impact will be most felt during the pandemic-caused recession we are all facing now. Of even more concern, the police are using data collected by the Smart Streetlights to surveil First Amendment protected activity. This is what happens when there is no “mindfulness”, careful thinking about the impact of such a rollout prior to its actual implementation.  

Like Oakland, a diverse coalition of concerned citizens organized in San Diego to address these concerns, and they found an amazing champion in City Council Member Monica Montgomery Steppe to sponsor the ordinances.

The TrustSD Coalition is comprised of over thirty local organizations, most of which are small, grassroots-orgs led by community leaders and activists. By contrast, with a population of nearly 1.5 million, San Diego is the 2nd largest city in California with a robust governing structure. It is a testament to the talent, hard work and thoughtfulness of TrustSD that a people-powered coalition was able to pass such significant reforms in a city that tends to embrace policing, military and border-patrol surveillance equipment and strategies. The success of TrustSD can serve as an inspiration to people across the country who may be working towards similar reforms in their own cities.

Secure Justice Executive Director Brian Hofer served as an advisor to Council Member Montgomery Steppe, and the TrustSD Coalition.

If you would like to support the work of Secure Justice, please make a financial contribution here: