Speakers warn that surveillance technology threatens civil rights.

Council is studying the use of surveillance technology by local governments after receiving a report on it earlier this month.

“AI-powered state surveillance represents one of the most urgent civil and human rights crises of our time,” said Clarence Okoh, National Director of Civil Rights and Technologies at Tectonic Justice during a Sept. 21 post agenda meeting.

He said even though the United States Supreme Court and lower federal courts have found that surveillance technologies can conflict with constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, governments continue to use them. 

“Elected officials play a critical role in safeguarding our civil rights and liberties against ever-growing tech-powered surveillance states,” Okoh said.

Mike Siegel, a city council member for Austin, Texas, talked about the difficulty his city had regulating surveillance technology. Initially, Austin instituted guidelines around the technologies, but found that approximately 20% of police department searches were noncompliant. 

Austin ultimately canceled its Flock and Axon automatic license plate reader (ALPR) contracts last year because of concerns surrounding federal immigration enforcement as well as tracking women who seek reproductive care across state lines. 

Pittsburgh’s report lists contracts between the Pittsburgh Police Department and Axon for body, vehicle and interview cameras. The city uses PlateSmart for automatic license plate reading, though the report doesn’t name the company. 

“As a part of that process of uncovering how damaging these systems were, we realized that local governments — city and county governments — are not very well equipped to evaluate these surveillance tools,” Siegel said.

Okoh suggested approaching policies through a co-governance lens, rather than depending solely on a technology company or requesting department. 

He also said creating an AI Bill of Rights can provide protections for navigating future technologies, rather than relying on reactionary policies.

Lorrie Cranor, co-director of the privacy engineering and AI governance master’s program at Carnegie Mellon University, said Pittsburgh’s governance structure made the technology report feel incomplete. It does not, for instance, include information about the Pittsburgh Parking Authority, Pittsburgh Regional Transit or Pittsburgh Public Schools because those are independent entities from the city.

Council Member Erika Strassburger of Squirrel Hill North said the city also does not have jurisdiction over private companies using surveillance cameras according to state law.