To the Editor:
After reflecting on the Monday, July 14’s city council meeting, particularly the discussion of digital kiosks, I realized that there are substantial inconsistencies in council policies for public cameras. I’m sure others have seen the same thing.
On July 9, officials constrained ALPR use because of fears of tracking undocumented immigrants. ALPRs were subject to substantial scrutiny prior to deployment, and their uses were contractually limited. During the July 9 meeting, council members Fish, McMorrin, and Puza expressed concern about the effectiveness of the measures, calling into question the vendor because of a CalMatters report that focused on data from several years back. The end result was a request that the police department substantially limit the cameras’ utility for law enforcement activities.
On June 14, however, the council majority (except for council member Fish) approved digital kiosks—kiosks that have cameras and a “selfie” function. There was little scrutiny of the company, little discussion by the council regarding hacking and data sharing—in short, the council seemed to gloss over these concerns. The end result was a request that the police department substantially limit the cameras’ utility for law enforcement activities due to perceived surveillance risks posed by the cameras.
In recent months, the city has also deployed bus cameras to better enforce parking regulations and bus lane misuse. These cameras continuously scan the field in front of them looking for violations, from which the city issues citations. And for years, we have had red-light cameras monitoring certain intersections. It is far from clear whether similar scrutiny was used when deploying either the bus or red light cameras.
Many of you probably have laptop computers, many of which come with shutters that can be used to cover the camera. Why? Because nefarious actors (and, frankly, employers) can activate the camera without the user’s knowledge. The only effective defense is to physically shutter the camera.
It is important to note that, by design, ALPRs and bus cameras do not capture faces, just license plates (but again, that is “by design”). Red light cameras do photograph the driver for verification, and it is unclear whether the quality of such photos would be sufficient to identify individuals. Again, this is by design. Regarding ALPRs, the council majority was concerned about sharing data with other agencies as well as bad actors hacking such systems—not their legitimate use.
In my mind, the bus cameras are still troubling, particularly in the immigration context. They continuously scan the field in front of them, apparently using AI to determine violations (see this LA Times article entitled “AI-powered cameras gave out nearly 10,000 tickets along L.A. bus routes. Are you next?” dated April 30, 2025). I suspect that they can also see folks at bus stops that they are approaching, and we have to remember that many less affluent people rely upon the bus. If we are concerned about misuse of that data, particularly for immigration enforcement purposes, the bus cameras do, I believe, present a risk that we haven’t addressed properly.
Applying this to the kiosk cameras leads to an even more troubling outcome. Kiosk cameras, by their design, face the street and pedestrians. Sure, they are intended for pedestrian use in taking “selfies,” but, like other cameras, that is the intended use, not the prospective misuse. I suspect that kiosks use commercially available operating systems, like Windows or Linux, and are, therefore, hackable by bad actors—and government agencies. And they are, by definition, pointed at pedestrians and their uncovered faces.
While I’m philosophically opposed to automated surveillance, I don’t generally see it as a risk to me personally. I simply do not do much that would put me in someone’s crosshairs. However, we’ve seen that certain segments of our community are in the government’s crosshairs—and all of us do need to be mindful of things like identity theft.
Ultimately, my issue here is the double-standard. We want cameras for right turns and bus lane violations because of the infraction revenue they bring in (and because it theoretically improves transit speeds). We want cameras in kiosks because of the revenue the kiosks bring in. But we don’t want them on ALPRs, which do not bring in revenue but are actually a useful crime-fighting tool. This is inconsistent and illogical.
Surveillance cameras, if you rate them by surveillance risk to the community would probably rate as follows (low to high): red light cameras (only because they appear to be “triggered” by underground sensors although one could see a more technically efficient AI approach that could replace the sensors), ALPRs (no face photos, only license plates, bus cameras (because of their constant monitoring of the curb area in front of them, which could include bus stop areas and the less affluent folks that use the bus), and at the highest risk, the kiosk cameras (they point directly at pedestrians and, theoretically, could be used to identify individuals).
As such, I think that the council has to develop a more consistent approach to public cameras, no matter what their purpose. That could go either way—approving ALPRs or severely limiting or removing other surveillance tools—but a coherent policy needs, more than anything, consistency. To this end, I requested a public hearing on this issue be placed on the agenda in the near future to examine our city’s approach to public cameras.
Gary M. Zeiss, Esq.
