AN ORDINANCE relating to surveillance technology implementation; authorizing approval of uses and accepting the 2021 surveillance impact report and 2021 executive overview for the Seattle Police Department’s use of Audio Recording Systems.
The report on the Economic Development Technology and City Light Committee Council Bill Agenda Item one Council Bill 120307 An ordinance relating to surveillance technology implementation authorizing approval of uses and accepting the 2021 Surveillance Impact Report and 2021 Executive Overview for the Seattle Police Department's use of audio recording systems. The committee recommends the bill passes amended. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Councilmember Nelson. Yes. So the 2017 surveillance ordinance requires city departments to obtain advance council approval for the acquisition of surveillance technologies and to request retroactive approval if those technologies have already been in use when that bill was passed. So these bills refer to the letter and they are two technologies that make up a group for a and I will just introduce how they've been dealt with in my committee and then then also address each one in turn. So Council Bill 120307 would approve the Seattle Police Department's continued use of audio recording systems and accept the Surveillance Impact Report and an executive overview for that technology. At our April 27 committee meeting, we had a joint presentation from the Seattle information from the Department of Seattle Information Technology and the Seattle Police Department. And they went over what these audio recordings were used for. And and we also had a presentation from central staff on, on some of the policy concerns or issues that were brought up in the public process. And at our last committee meeting on May 11th, we discussed amendments and amended the Council Bill 120307 and passed it out of committee unanimously. So I will open it up for questions on this bill and how about it? And then we can move on to questions about the next bill. Technology. I actually will open it up for questions. Okay. Sorry. So thank you. Councilmember Nelson, are there any questions that any of my colleagues have I city also verbal? I just want to flag the amendments to the legislation, mostly based on recommendations of the working group, though I will acknowledge that there were some tabled amendments that I was interested in pursuing, but because of some of the issues in my office, we were unable to move forward on those. But I do want to thank Council member Nelson for making time in her committee for the discussion of these four amendments. And I appreciate the support of those committee members who were able to vote for them. One was requesting a report to the clerk from SPD describing how Speedy ensures the authenticity of recordings and accurate identifications of individuals in audio recordings and through the use of covert audio recording systems. Speedy had said that they were already working on that and had no objections. Another amendment was part of what we referred to as about the suspender approach as it related to bio metric technology. We all recognize that the addition of new, new surveillance technology. Would. Require a new sir and council action. But this basically just sort of doubles down on that expectation and says that we require speed to revise or conduct a new server before moving forward. If it was intended to do so. As it relates to using biometric technology. The Third Amendment does not go as far. I think as as we heard in public comments, the workgroup would like but require that a speedy identify the manufacturers and vendors of the audio recording systems. And lastly replicating an amendment that Councilmember Peterson made a sort of a staple in his committee in as it relates to these sort of surveillance technologies. There is an amendment that requires SPG to report on the equity assessment or on the metrics that they're using and to include it in their annual equity assessment. The identification of the equity metrics. You. Eddie Customer Herbold Are there any other comments? Okay. Not seen any. Well, the clerk please call the role on the passage of the Bill Strauss. Yes. Councilmember Herbold. Councilmember Lewis. Yes. Councilmember Morales. Councilmember Morales. She's. Councilmember Nelson, I. Councilmember Peterson i. Council president. Whereas I. Can we look back to Councilman Morales one more time? I see she's on the screen. Sure. And Councilmember Morales. Okay. So six in favor and unopposed. Okay, great. Thank you. The bill passes and the chair will sign it. And Madam Clerk, be, please affix my signature. Let's move on to item number two. Councilmember Nelson, it's you again. On the record. Yep. Yep. I'm sorry about. That.