Automated license plate readers.
By Caleb Lunetta / San Diego Union-Tribune / May 1, 2023
The city’s newly-established Privacy Advisory Board voted last week to create an ad hoc committee to gather more research and public comment on the San Diego Police Department’s proposal to install hundreds of smart street lights and automatic license plate readers across the city. The purpose of the committee will be to ensure the board has more community input before its members decide whether to recommend the proposal to the City Council.
Thursday’s meeting — attended by approximately 50 members of the public in-person with an unknown number of people attending via Zoom — was the second since the board first met in March. The eight members of the advisory board were appointed by Mayor Todd Gloria in 2022. During the meeting, representatives from the Police Department presented the Smart Streetlights Impact Report, which including information on the purpose of the technology, where it would be located, how much it would cost and how the data collected would be safeguarded. …
Some residents at the in-person meetings supported the idea, saying the high-tech streetlights could help police solve or prevent serious crimes. But many had concerns over privacy, over-policing in communities of color and how the information would be stored and collected.
The comments largely skewed against the program at two of the meetings held in Mission Valley and Mountain View on March 8 and March 9, respectively. Of the 394 comments left on the online recording of one of the meetings, 324 were opposed to the program.
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