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Pittsburgh City Council

Pittsburgh police have quietly used cell phone surveillance software for seven years.

Written by Amy Whipple

For seven years, Pittsburgh police have contracted with a service that offers continuous surveillance.

Pittsburgh City Council Member Deb Gross of Highland Park flagged a $2,754 invoice for LeadsOnline’s CellHawk software during a Feb. 12 committee meeting. 

CellHawk acts as a continuous surveillance system. It collects data beyond what’s typically supplied from a mobile carrier in response to a subpoena, according to a 2020 investigation by The Intercept. This includes lists of all phones connected to a cell tower, GPS data, and interpersonal connections.

According to Gross’s conversation with the administration, the police department only requests information from LeadsOnline with a search warrant.

“It means that our policies and our legislation need to be better in order to protect our citizens’ right to privacy,” she said, and “to prevent them from being subjected, even unintentionally by us, to surveillance and surveillance technologies.”

While council makes procurement card purchase details available to the public, it does not do the same for invoices, even though it votes on both. The contract with Leads also does not appear to be available through the legislative website, OpenBook Pittsburgh, or the Beacon portal.

This isn’t the city’s first contract with LeadsOnline. According to documentation available in OpenBook, it appears the city terminated a $397,000, three-year contract for stolen property tracking software in 2023—less than four months after it began.

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