The city of Piedmont, CA is in the process of evaluating and considering an expanded public safety camera program and may discuss further at a June City Council meeting. If you are a Piedmont resident, and to help ensure that the City Council understands your views on public safety cameras, please visit polis.democracygps.org/piedmont-camera to vote on a series of statements regarding the public safety camera program. If the existing statements don’t capture your opinions and feelings, you can add one or more new statements that you agree with. Thank you in advance for your time and for your participation!
Although your opinions and responses to the poll will be kept confidential, please feel free to use this site for discussion of the topic. Comments will be moderated and, if necessary, edited for civility.
As of 5/19/19 at ~9:00 AM, the statements include:
- I am a resident of Piedmont
- I am concerned that the federal government would have unlimited access to Piedmont’s license plate and surveillance data
- I think the benefits of license plate readers outweigh their costs
- I will be eligible to vote in the November 2020 election.
- I would be concerned if pictures of all of the passengers in my car were publicly available
- I would be concerned if records of my entering and leaving Piedmont were publicly available
- Most, if not all, of Piedmont policies related to public safety cameras should be made public as is done in cities like Menlo Park
- Personal privacy is very important to me
- Public safety cameras can help to catch criminals
- Public safety cameras deter crime
- There should be a record and audit of who reviews taped surveillance video
- There should be public debate before automatic facial recognition software is used with Piedmont surveillance video
