David Michael Miller
When you drive downtown, the city may be tracking the Bluetooth signal emitting from your phone to study traffic patterns. When you park, your license plate number may be collected by a parking enforcement vehicle. If you march around the Square during a protest or event, police and other city officials are watching in real-time via a growing network of remotely controlled, high-resolution cameras that can rotate in all directions and zoom in. And that’s just the technology the city is willing to talk about.
Ald. Rebecca Kemble says the use of surveillance technology by all city agencies — not just the police — has exploded and residents have no idea how often their physical and digital footprints are being tracked.
“I know they don’t. Their own elected representatives don’t even know,” Kemble says. “We don’t know what kind of surveillance [technology] is being used by city departments. We don’t know what it’s being used for. We don’t know what they do with the data that’s collected or who has access to it. There just has not been any real oversight.”
Kemble chairs a work group created in December by the Common Council that is tasked with creating a uniform surveillance policy for the city.
The committee — which started meeting in February — is surveying all city agencies to determine what kind of technology is being used, how it’s being used and who has access to it.
“It’s been fascinating to just hear what technology is already being used,” says Ald. Sheri Carter, a member of the surveillance committee. “Ordinances need to keep up with the times. We can’t predict what new technology will come. But we can set up a framework and a transparent process on how it’s used by the city.”
However, the committee quickly discovered that several city agencies and departments — including police, water utility and information technology — have surveillance technology that they don’t want to be made public. Kemble says department heads will inform the mayor and the committee in closed sessions of any technology deemed “too sensitive” to disclose.
“I don’t know what is so secret it can’t be made public. We’ll find out when we go into closed session to discuss a procedure for how to handle it,” Kemble says. “It’s important for elected officials to know what our agencies are using, even if the info has to be kept confidential.”
What is the city doing that’s too sensitive to be made public? Assistant police chief Vic Wahl, a member of the surveillance committee, won’t provide details but insists it’s nothing to worry about.
“It’s less about some super secret thing that everybody would be shocked by. It’s just certain details about things that we wouldn’t want to have out there. I think people would be pretty underwhelmed if they knew about it,” Wahl says. “For example, we certainly have surveillance cameras that we can set up for criminal investigations. But we don’t want the public domain to necessarily know how many we have, what their capacities are or certainly where we are putting them. We don’t want to jeopardize the integrity of the investigations.”
Amy Barrilleaux, public information officer for the Madison Water Utility, says her agency was advised by Homeland Security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks not to publicly disclose “specific access points” to the city’s water supply.
“It’s less about sensitive technologies and more about sensitive locations,” Barrilleaux says. “Of course, that’s where many of our security cameras are located.”
The committee is also charged with drafting formal policies on how city agencies manage and protect data. Sarah Edgerton, the city’s webmaster, says publicly disclosing specific software or technical details about the city’s digital infrastructure may leave those systems vulnerable and that risk needs to weighed against the public’s right to access government data.
“It’s not just the city. Everybody needs to be thinking about digital security,” Edgerton says. “You. Me. Isthmus needs to worry about this. That’s the world we live in now.”
Emilio De Torre, director of community engagement for ACLU Wisconsin, is skeptical about the benefits of local governments installing cameras on every corner and collecting data that is seemingly anonymous. He cites studies conducted in the United Kingdom and North Korea that found mass surveillance takes an emotional toll on a community.
“Those are two of the most heavily surveilled countries on Earth. It has a stifling, homogenizing effect on humans,” De Torre says. “It’s been empirically proven to affect how we behave. How would you act if someone was watching you constantly? What you say, what you think, how you act — all of that would change.”
De Torre says Madison and Milwaukee are the only communities in the state considering citywide surveillance policies. Even if some information is too sensitive to disclose publicly, De Torre says rules need to be established.
“As stewards of public safety, it’s important that elected officials know what’s going on. Most cities have no clue because there is nothing on the books dictating what city agencies and police departments can and cannot do. The opportunity for abuse is out there,” De Torre says. “There also needs to be a public discussion on whether certain technologies even need to be adopted. Just because you have this new toy doesn’t mean you should be able to use it without certain permissions or safeguards in place. I think Madison could be a model for how other cities get a handle on all this.”
And without clear guidelines, even elected officials can be left in the dark. In 2017, De Torre says he talked to more than a dozen alders about the Madison Police being an early adopter of software called Cellebrite, which can extract a huge trove of data off of smartphones. De Torre discovered a contract that showed Madison police are using it.
“Cellebrite lets you basically clone a phone and all its data. Your whole life is there. All your passwords. Your email. Your social media. Your bank accounts. GPS data,” De Torre says. “The Madison Police Department has been using this software for a decade and not one alder I spoke to knew anything about it.”
Wahl says the Cellebrite software is only “used by a few investigators who have received specialized training” and only if a warrant is obtained or if police are given consent to search someone’s phone.
But Kemble says that’s exactly the kind of technology the surveillance committee would like to know about and set guidelines for.
“At the very least, elected officials need to know what’s going on,” Kemble says. “It’s baffling that we don’t already have clear guidelines. We just want to make sure everyone is on the same page in terms of the community’s expectations. ”
There is one city agency that isn’t jumping on the surveillance bandwagon: the Parks Division. Parks Superintendent Eric Knepp says his division only has a handful of internal security cameras at its pro shops at city-owned golf courses and at the Warner Park community center. Those cameras aren’t hooked up to the city’s network of cameras used by the police and other agencies.
“If I want to see the footage from those cameras, I have to physically go down there and pull the tape. The police have one outdoor camera at Brittingham Park that was installed in 2008 before my time here. That’s the only surveillance camera in any of our parks,” Knepp says. “It’s not like we don’t have some public safety issues where cameras could be beneficial. Other parks systems have welcomed this technology.”
Knepp says the Board of Park Commissioners, which guides policy for the division, voted 7-0 last year against a police request to add cameras at James Madison Park.
“There are a lot of great technology ideas out there. Maybe I’m a Luddite,” Knepp says. “But I don’t see a compelling reason to even look into adding cameras to our parks especially after such a decisive vote from our board telling us don’t.”
