Demand Strict Privacy Safeguards on SFPD Drone Policy (Deadline September 20)

Local LevelPublic Comment
Written By Kathy Lass

EMAIL Comments:

Police Commission: sfpd.commission@sfgov.org

SUBJECT LINE:  “Public Comment on DGO 10.12”.

DEADLINE: September 20th

 
 

The Ask:  Email Your SFPD Drone Policy Public Comment to the SF Police Commission

Deadline: September 20th  

PUBLIC COMMENT EMAIL SCRIPTS: 

Use any or all of these four policy areas to personalize your message to the SF Police Commission. You can add any personal experience you have had with mass surveillance and personal privacy concerns.  

  1. Drones shouldn’t be monitoring everyone, all the time. SFPD should prohibit “General Drone Patrol” and limit their use to specific law-enforcement incidents. Rapid response drones should not be used as roving police officers. 

  2. Rules about drones can’t be vague. Protect our privacy with specific rules about observation, recording, and tracking, to which law enforcement can be held accountable. This policy should restrict tracking homes and private spaces without a warrant, consent, or legal permission. 

  3. Our First Amendment rights (religion, speech, press, assembly, protest) deserve the strongest protection. Drones should not be used to monitor, identify, record, or track people engaged in First Amendment activity.

  4. Loopholes in drone data retention, access and sharing must be closed. SFPD should not keep footage of unrelated people and activity taken during the same drone flight. SFPD needs better rules for who may access retained drone footage, for what purpose, whether access is logged, and whether old footage may be searched for unrelated investigations.

SEND EMAIL TO: sfpd.commission@sfgov 

SUBJECT LINE:  “Public Comment on DGO 10.12”.

Context

The San Francisco Police Commission has opened a public comment period until Sunday, September 20 to request public comment on proposed changes to SFPD drone policy. (Department General Order 10.12)  The problem is that SFPD’s new drone policy (DGO 10.12) unlawfully expands SFPD’s power to use drones, invites invasions of privacy, chills First Amendment activity, and installs a weak data retention/sharing model. 

San Francisco residents can influence the San Francisco Police Department’s drone policy by sending in public comments specific to four core policy points:   banning general drone patrol, enforcing strict privacy rules, protecting First Amendment rights, and closing data retention and sharing loopholes. 

Keeping our data safe is a problem: San Francisco police data has been leaked before. How do we know if this data won’t be stolen or leaked? Reports indicate that the San Francisco Police Department has shared automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with out-of-state agencies assisting in federal immigration investigations, bypassing local sanctuary restrictions. This drone policy risks data-harvesting during a tense political climate, creating unvetted databases and lists, images, video and maps of movement of people.

While public comment will not succeed in banning drones, your comments right now can help change the specific policy points listed above. In fact, public comment at the September Police Commission was already successful in striking a general surveillance clause but it did not go far enough to protect our privacy and First Amendment rights.

References

Newspaper Articles highlighting Privacy and First Amendment Concerns 

 

This Week's State-Level Call Scripts

Summary Block
This block has no content yet. Items you add to the page connected to this block will display here.
Featured
 
Kathy Lass
Previous

Tell your Members of Congress: Oppose MAGA's Greenhouse Gas Rule (use the Congressional Review Act)!
Next

SFO is under sanctuary policy! ICE out of SFO