The Cambridge City Council just barely gave the green light to the police department’s plan to get two new surveillance tools, even though a lot of residents pushed back hard. However, they held off on deciding about police drones for now.
Police Commissioner Christine A. Elow told the council Monday night that these drones are needed so CPD can “improve situational awareness,” help find missing people, and gather evidence in crimes.
Still, almost 30 people from Cambridge spoke out against it during public comments. They worried that data collected by CPD using this new tech might end up being shared with federal agencies.
“With a slew of executive orders coming from the White House right now, people don’t feel safe in our communities already,” Jennifer Warren, a local resident, said to the council.
“Tacking on continued surveillance is only going to heighten the sense of unrest and feeling unsafe where we live,” she added.
Despite all that concern, the council voted 6-3 to approve about 15 to 20 Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) units – basically fixed cameras that snap pictures of license plates, convert those images into text files, and keep that info for 30 days. According to CPD’s report on this tech, these cameras won’t record sound or video and can’t be watched live.
“We are fully committed to balancing the needs of effective law enforcement with the protection of individual rights,” Elow said. She also pointed out that this license plate system won’t use facial recognition at all.
Still, some folks worry this data could be handed over to federal authorities targeting undocumented residents amid tougher immigration crackdowns nationwide – even though Cambridge has a sanctuary city law.
“ALPR technology, like the one produced here, are shared expansively across agencies,” Tesla Wells from Cambridge said during public comment.
“This means Cambridge residents will be surveilled – not just by the CPD – but would enable surveillance of Cambridge residents by agencies on a state and federal level.”
Megan Bayer, city solicitor, confirmed that CPD follows the sanctuary city rules strictly and doesn’t “voluntarily do the work of federal immigration officials or provide information.”
The council also okayed buying a “Gray Key” device which lets police access locked phone data – but only if they get a warrant, have permission from the phone owner, or there’s an emergency situation. Right now CPD can only get this kind of access through state channels.
Elow said missing evidence has kept many recent homicide cases from moving forward because they don’t have enough tech tools yet to solve them.
“It’s just a tool that we utilize anyway, and this would put us at the top of the line as far as investigations go,” Elow explained.
“We’re still trying to get a phone analyzed from our homicide last year,” she added.
A lot of locals have been worried about gun violence lately – including after a deadly shooting less than three weeks ago – but many who spoke at Monday’s meeting didn’t believe more surveillance was going to fix things.
“The timing of this seems like a way of preying on concerns about public safety, capitalizing on tragedy in order to expand their budget and expand their militarized capacities,” Sean Joyce-Farley said. He lives in North Cambridge where a 21-year-old was killed last month.
The council did pass those two pieces of police surveillance equipment but sent any decisions about drones over to their Public Safety Committee for further discussion.
“It’s just the normalization of increasing militarization of police technology is super concerning on another level,” Mila Halgren from MIT Coalition Against Apartheid told me before things got underway Monday night. -Staff writer Matan H. Josephy can be reached [email protected]. Follow him on X @matanjosephy. -Staff writer Laurel M. Shugart can be reached at [email protected]. Follow them on X @laurelmshugart or on Threads @laurel. shugart.
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