Editorial: APD video must strike safety, privacy balance

The city of Albuquerque’s new high-tech smart policing system could prove an effective tool for law enforcement and citizens alike. But it doesn’t come without some nagging concerns about “Big Brother” and the need to balance public safety and privacy.

The city’s more than 100 traffic cameras will now feed video into an information center that also will have access to databases packed with information to help guide cops in the field. It’s hard to argue an officer dispatched to a scene shouldn’t know he or she is headed to a home with a schizophrenic resident, convicted felon or a history of domestic violence calls.

Or for that matter, have access to video surveillance that could help officers apprehend criminals. But all that doesn’t come without privacy concerns — the city has never recorded video at these cameras, using them to monitor traffic situations in real time.

Now the Albuquerque Police Department will have the tape running and will keep it for 24 hours in the name of reducing “the number of deadly force encounters our officers are involved in and to help keep them and the public safe by providing them all of the information they need.”

That surveillance and archiving, though short-term, is raising civil liberty concerns. Peter Simonson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, says the system “has the potential to collect massive amounts of data and establish patterns of activity that the police might take as suspicious, but that are in fact activity that is perfectly law abiding. … The fact that APD has given itself this capacity, given its recent history, raises red flags for me.”

As should the likelihood the recordings will generate requests for copies from accident attorneys as well as capture serious incidents that should prompt prosecutions, perhaps even involving responding officers. It makes no sense to argue that the police beating of a man in a parking garage should be a candidate for 24-hour erasure. The policy cuts both ways, but so much for erasing everything every 24 hours.

The video feeds and database specifics are the kind of information that could give officers a better chance of de-escalating a situation and for holding police accountable.

The real question is whether APD can ensure the privacy and civil rights of the law-abiding public at large don’t fall victim to a policing technology that targets the few for good reason.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.