Oakland City Council – DAC Privacy Policy. Item S-20

The Domain Awareness Center Privacy policy is up for a vote, along with related measures to be discussed. For background see The Oakland Privacy Working Group blog post “All Out for the Oakland City Council Meeting” and other posts on that site.

Note: This item is late on the agenda as it stands. Agenda items can be moved around.  There is no real way to know approximately what time it will come up, as there are other controversial items on the agenda.

OPWG has a few talking points specific to this item:

• The policy is an important demonstration of how citizenry, staff and the Council can work together. Pass it as presented, with no additional exceptions, especially any allowing OPD to spy on residents w/o reasonable suspicion under ANY circumstances.
• A policy is ineffective without a means of enforcement.
• “Injunctive relief,” as proposed, is a good enforcement mechanism, neither overly burdensome nor toothless.
• Without enforcement the work of nine citizens who donated their time and expertise for an entire year of meetings and analysis will have been thrown out the window.
• A City-wide privacy committee, which will be coming before you in the future, is a must. The risks to privacy are only going to get bigger as technology becomes more sophisticated. As such their first task should be drafting a Surveillance Equipment Acquisition Ordinance, as recommended by the Ad Hoc DAC Privacy Committee.