San Francisco SafeCity Camera Program

San Francisco SafeCity Camera Program
Excluded from graph
Deployment Status	Ongoing
Deployment Start Date
Deployment End Date
Events
City	San Francisco
Country	USA
Involved Entities	San Francisco Police Department
Keywords
Technology Deployed	Avigilon Facial Recognition
Information Certainty	Documented
Primary sources	1, 2, 3
Datasets Used	Unknown Dataset 0015
Deployment Type	Criminal investigations, Surveillance
runs search software
managed by	Union Square Business Improvement District
used by	SF SafeCity Camera Program
Potentially used by
Information Certainty	0
Summary	0

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Information Certainty: Documented

Deployment Purpose: Criminal investigations, Surveillance

Summary
0

• Details

Products and Institutions:

Product Deployed	Avigilon Facial Recognition Genetec (Software)
Institutions ⠉	Avigilon Genetec
Datasets	Unknown Dataset 0015 Avigilon (Dataset) Genetec (Dataset)
Search software

Status and Events:

Status	Ongoing
Events
Start Date
End Date

Users:

Involved Entities	San Francisco Police Department
Managed by	Union Square Business Improvement District
Used by	SF SafeCity Camera Program

Location:

City	San Francisco (CA)
Country ⠉	USA

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Description

The camera networks that are being used in San Francisco were purportedly put in place to develop a SafeCity concept for the purposes of crime deterrence. The camera networks are operated by various non-profits. SafeCity San Francisco states that it does not use the cameras for live feeds or facial recognition. However the cameras have this potential and have been found to have been used as live feeds to identify protestors (which is illegal in San Francisco).

The SF SafeCity Camera Program adheres to strict policies and procedures with privacy protocols in place; there is no live monitoring of the system, no facial recognition, no audio recording, and footage requests are only granted to law enforcement entities

The camera network is operated by the Union Square Business Improvement District (BID), a special taxation district created by the City and County of San Francisco, but operated by a private non-profit organization. These networked cameras, manufactured by Motorola Solutions' brand Avigilon, are high definition, can zoom in on a person's face to capture face-recognition ready images, and are linked to a software system that can automatically analyze content, including distinguishing between when a car or a person passes within the frame

According to logs obtained by EFF, SFPD has regularly sought footage related to alleged looting and assault in the area associated with the ongoing protests against police violence. However, SFPD has gone beyond simply investigating particular incident reports and instead engaged in indiscriminate surveillance of protesters

The technology that Mr. Larsen is using is sophisticated — video management from Motorola Solutions, evidence management from Genetec. Those same cameras, and the software supporting them, can be used for more than what they are currently doing