The city of San Diego has installed 3,200 sensors in street lights all over San Diego that monitors pedestrian traffic, among other movements. This is part of an effort to make San Diego a so-called “smart city,” and last week, city officials met with members of the public for the first time to quell fears about privacy given the rise of facial-recognition technology and license-plate scanners. Some sensors gather atmospheric data, but they are also equipped with video cameras and audio capabilities. The metadata gathered by these sensors will connect to General Electric’s “CityIQ” cloud database, which includes data like “the number of persons who passed a location during a particular time” but would not include “personally identifiable information about those persons.”
But now, a coalition of more than a dozen community groups gathered Tuesday outside San Diego City Hall to call for a moratorium on “smart streetlights” until concerns about privacy and surveillance are addressed. City officials said they can use the data to improve pedestrian safety, optimize mobility planning, help first responders during emergencies and provide other benefits to the community. The smart technology does not have facial recognition, does not read license plates or show private property. All data is overwritten after five days unless police download it, according to the city. Some data can be kept up to seven years.
Credits:
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/2019-09-17/protesters-call-for-san-diego-to-suspend-smart-streetlight-technology-ci-privacy-concerns
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