The NYPD announced its Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) program, which will be comprised of newly acquired Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), or drones, and the licensed NYPD officers of the Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU) who will operate them.
Following almost a year of legal battles, Lexington must release information about the city’s surveillance cameras and policies surrounding their use, a judge ordered this month.
Chicago lawmakers are attempting to amend the Freedom from Drone Surveillance Act to permit law enforcement to fly surveillance drones over “large scale events” in Chicago. The bill references festivals and concerts, but ACLU Illinois says the amendment could empower police to fly drones over political protests and rallies.
In San Francisco, the Union Square Business Improvement District launched an outdoor security camera program in 2012, starting with six privately-owned cameras, and it has since raised more than $3 million in grant money and outfitted 40 property owners with cameras, extending the network to around 350 cameras that share footage with police.
Police will soon be able to access surveillance cameras with views from around Springfield, Mass., including the new MGM Springfield casino, Union Station and city schools. Analysts at the Springfield Police Department’s Real-Time Analysis center will be able to use information gleaned from those cameras to provide situational awareness and information to officers in the field.
To address smash-and-grab car break-ins at the seven parking garages owned by the Municipal Transportation Agency, San Francisco officials are upping their game on security measures. Since May, the SFMTA has added high-definition security cameras, license plate readers, protective fencing, intercom systems and, in some locations, police officers, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Officials installed more than 20 surveillance cameras at the Randolf Career Technical Education Center as part of Project Green Light, a project started in 2016 to create safer neighborhoods.
Officials would have a say in the policies that govern surveillance tools and would get annual reports on them – including what data was shared, with whom, where surveillance happened, whether complaints resulted, and information about costs and data breaches.
The global market for city surveillance equipment surpassed $3 billion in 2017, and it’s expected to grow at an average annual rate of 14.6 percent from 2016 to 2021, according to a report from IHS Markit.
