Campaign Email #5 - Cameras
Building on my last message about public safety, this evening I want to dive into the topic of traffic monitoring cameras in Fairfax City - including speed, red light, and Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras - along with their associated data collection and privacy considerations. I've teased this email quite a bit over the last few weeks as I've been out knocking on doors and meeting with community groups, and in that time, the national relevance of the topic has only continued to increase, with WIRED magazine recently breaking a story about Flock's newest AI prompt injects for its ubiquitous network of ALPRs marketed at local law enforcement.
For background: professionally, I have been part of teams that designed and implemented physical security systems for military installations that integrated a wide array of cameras and sensors. I understand the power of these tools to amplify interdiction and discovery operations, helping to focus response efforts in a way that minimizes impact to the broader community. But that benefit must be held in balance with the undeniable impact on the captive population's broader privacy of movement.
The "collateral damage" of broad, unannounced public surveillance going back to the initial Patriot Act in 2001 doesn't need documentation here, but it is significant. The ever-increasing capture and storage of camera feeds everywhere on the presumption that they will become useful should a crime occurs erodes our justice system's presumption of innocence - we are effectively all suspects, all the time. This is where the local architecture and usage of these systems makes the difference between a legitimate public safety tool and a vector for dangerous privacy invasion.
The City of Fairfax has not held any public hearings on traffic camera installation and usage since 2021, when the City code was amended to allow the use of speed monitoring cameras in school zones (red light cameras had been authorized in the City since 1997). Flock cameras came online in the City in 2023 without any public hearing or announcement. Property owners can also legally place cameras on the exterior of their building(s) or property, although to the best of my knowledge, the City does not have a mechanism to link privately-installed and operated cameras with their own data collection feeds (aside from national device registry systems like Ring) like Fairfax County does.
As your mayor, I will advocate for public hearings ahead of any public safety system investment. Not because I don't trust the City's law enforcement community, but because I don't trust the technology companies selling these systems in the name of safety while failing to prioritize data security themselves. Think about how many times you've accepted a Terms of Service agreement update for a cell phone or an online account without actually reading the whole thing - imagine those same "fine print" changes being pushed out repeatedly about the collection and storage of community data. Even the best-intentioned and most close-reading acquisitions officer is no match for a technology company motivated to collect as much salable, exploitable data as possible. I don't believe time- or role-based limits on law enforcement access to the camera data necessarily address these concerns - we need to know for certain where our data is being sent, how and where it is being processed and stored, and whether it is being aggregated with any other feeds or data sources without explicit City consent.
I want to leverage our community of smart people - I'm sure I'm not the only resident with physical and cyber security experience! - to ensure that any technology implementation the City considers in the name of public safety is evaluated with regard to both the benefits and the privacy implications. This comes full-circle back to one of my campaign priorities: lowering barriers to and incentivizing resident engagement with the City. Camera monitoring and data privacy is just one area where tapping into our collective expertise will yield better results than an elected government abdicating responsibility by way of a budget line item.
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic...and anything else that has piqued your interest lately. For those of you who have been asking how you can help with the campaign: please forward this email! Word of mouth is the best advertising, and I am grateful for everyone who has put in a good word for me so far. I also have plenty of the newest batch of yard signs to distribute, so please let me know if you'd like one dropped off.
Looking forward to seeing many of you at Rock the Block this Friday!