The May 11th, 2022 meeting of the Seattle City Council's Economic Development, Technology, and City Light Committee will come to order.
It is 9.31.
I'm Sarah Nelson, chair of the committee.
Will the clerk please call the roll?
Council Member Sawant?
Council Member Strauss?
Present.
Council Member Herbold?
Here.
Council President Juarez?
Chair Nelson?
Present.
And I want to note that, sorry about that.
Could you say what you just said again?
Of course, three present.
Right, and so for the public, I want to note that Council President Juarez did let our office know she's unable to attend today's meeting and is excused.
There are two items on the agenda today, both a continuation of our conversation last month at our last meeting on April 27th, on group 4A of the surveillance impact reports on surveillance technologies already in use by the Seattle Police Department.
If there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.
All right, hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.
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All right, the public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.
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Our first speaker is Cynthia Spies.
Cynthia, go ahead.
Please press star six.
Hi, I'm Cynthia Spies.
Can you hear me?
We can hear you.
Okay, hi, I'm Cynthia speeds independent security researcher and district 6 resident.
My comments are regarding both council bills.
I support all 9 proposed amendments across these 2 surveillance technologies regarding the undercover audio recording devices.
Amendment 3 could be improved to include the device model names, which would be straightforward for SPD to provide given the purchase orders would include that.
Regarding IBASE, Amendment 2 could be improved to include with the tally the incident case types, which is homicide, burglary, etc.
Both these surveillance technologies could benefit from council members adding oversight by the requirement that they receive an audit of their use and scoping their use to only cases involving a violent or serious offense.
While at the last committee meeting, a city framed their current use of IBASE as being limited based both on officers' time and poor quality of certain features from within IBASE, but neither of those are set in stone.
This means that if SPD had more staff and or if certain parts of IBASE function better, then SPD would be using those more concerning features tomorrow.
As such, the responsibility falls on City Council to add official guardrails.
Additional oversight of IBASE should be added by a couple of members, prohibiting the use of predictive policing, prohibiting pulling in bulk data from external data sources into IBASE such as data brokers, prohibiting pulling in data from automated license or reader geolocation databases, and requiring that the contract governing SPD's acquisition of IBASE be posted publicly.
Lastly, and most importantly, council members should require that the public comment period deadline for any surveillance technology extends until at least one week after all the public's questions have been answered, either on the Seattle IT Privacy Department or SPD's website.
The vast majority of the public's questions on these technologies are still unanswered.
SPD is dodging one of the key purposes of the surveillance ordinance, which is to provide transparency and accountability.
In order to address this problem, the public comment period should be tied to SPD providing answers to the public's questions as an official deliverable, instead of tying the public comment period purely to a calendar date.
Please see my emails to you for detailed recommendations you should take on these surveillance technologies.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Is there anyone else signed up to speak?
No, Chair, that was our only speaker.
All right.
Well then, thank you very much for taking the time to call in for public comments.
Seeing no other people signed up for public comment, the public comment period is now closed.
And we'll now proceed to our items of business.
And since the items are related, will the clerk please read both items into the record?
Items number one and two, council bills 120307 and 120309, 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 and IBM i2 base briefing discussion and possible vote.
Thank you very much.
So, to introduce these items, just a little bit of background information.
In 2017, the City Council passed Ordinance 125376, otherwise known as the Surveillance Ordinance.
requiring city departments to obtain advance council approval for the acquisition of surveillance technology and to request retroactive approval of those technologies that have already been in use when that bill was passed.
Council bills 120307 and 120309 would approve the Seattle Police Department's continued use of those technologies and accept the surveillance impact report, SIR, and an executive overview for each technology.
At our last meeting on April 27 we had a joint presentation from Seattle information technology and the Seattle Police Department that went over.
the process for reviewing surveillance technologies and describing the technologies that these particular SIRs were concerned with, and also described basically what they did, how they worked, and how the overall process floats.
So they also went over the related laws and policies that authorize and limit SPD's use of such technologies.
And we also had a central staff presentation that went over the civil liberties and the potential disparate impacts of each technology based on input from the surveillance technology working group and proposed policy considerations that could inform amendments to the legislation before us.
And so today we'll discuss and possibly vote on the 10 amendments proposed by committee members, as well as possibly voting out Council Bills 120307 and 120309 out of committee.
All right, so I want to take a step back and just let people know the lens through which I'll be approaching this conversation on amendments and decisions because this process is fairly new to me and I just want to explain my rationale.
So the reason for the city's surveillance ordinance is to identify, prevent and reduce or mitigate violations of civil liberties that could result from the use of these technologies.
And in this case, SPD in this case, what SPD is using in the course of investigations.
Surveillance technologies are defined as surveillance technology.
This is from the ordinance means any electronic device software program or hosted software solution that is designed or primarily intended to be used for the purpose of surveillance.
So as we deliberate on these amendments, the question I bring to the table is whether or not, do these amendments better protect the civil liberties or privacy of individuals subject to an investigation in which these technologies are being used?
So those are the questions that I am going to be considering as we go through our our conversation.
So first I'll move Council Bill 120307 and then turn it over to Lisa Kay from Central Staff to walk us through the proposal and and the amendments.
Thank you Chair Nelson.
Oh Council Member Herbold.
I was just mentioning that you, Chair Nelson, you moved the bill for purposes of discussing, I second it.
That's all.
Oh, thank you.
Okay.
I'm Lisa Kaye.
I'm with central staff.
I also wanted to say good morning to you, Council Member Herbold and Council Member Strauss.
I'm also joined, I think online we have Brian Maxey, Rebecca Boatwright and Captain Britt from the Police Department and Omari Stringer from the Information Technology Department.
So as you mentioned, Chair Nelson, if it suits you, I will describe the first set of amendments which apply to Council Bill 120-307.
This is the bill that would approve the police department's continued use of audio recording devices and accept the surveillance impact report.
As you mentioned, these devices are used under the authority of a warrant to covertly record conversations during a criminal investigation.
The committee today has four amendments before you.
Each of these four are sponsored by Council Member Herbold.
I will go ahead and share my screen with your permission, Chair Nelson.
Is that working now?
You can see the amendments?
Yes.
Great.
Okay, so, and I will just be projecting each amendment as they come forward for discussion so members can see the wording.
Amendment one would ask the police department to report by October 31 of this year on how the department ensures authenticity of these recordings and also ensures the accurate identification of recorded individuals.
As you may recall from my staff report, SBD advised me that the police department's case detectives are responsible for identifying individuals and for reviewing any recordings obtained from these devices.
With that, I will turn the mic over to Council Member Herbold, if that's your questions.
Yes, please do.
Okay.
I think the statement I have I think is overriding for Each of the issues that you are going to cover, Lisa, is that these amendments are based on recommendations of the working group.
So just kind of want to lay that out there as a foundation on these specific amendments.
Council Member, do you want me to walk through each of the amendments and then have you go back and vote on each of them, or do you want to?
Yes, I think that we should.
Go ahead.
So I do think that, hold on, we're talking over each other and I apologize for that.
Yes, please do go into depth in this in amendment number one.
Okay, I think amendment one, I summarized and Councilmember Herbold has spoken to unless Councilmember Herbold, you had some additional.
I'm happy to move on.
I have nothing more to add.
Okay, well, I appreciate the work that has been done by the surveillance working group to put forth these, to inform your amendments.
I do, again, come back to the questions that I had before is how will this report?
Well, basically, I'll just ask it in plain English.
How are recordings already authenticated what would what extra steps with this amendment require them to do in what ways is, is the authenticity of recordings that have been in use.
have they been problematic in the past?
I mean, I just need more information about why this amendment is important, considering that it does ask for some work by SPD, they're short-staffed, et cetera, et cetera.
So I just wanted to get a better understanding of- And absolutely only asks SPD to tell us what they're already doing.
It doesn't ask them to do anything more.
Each of these amendments only asks SPD to tell us what they're already doing.
How SPD ensures authenticity we're not going to change any, any policies, just to tell us how they how they do this function.
Well it does ask for a report by October 31 2020. So that is asking for an additional action.
So again, I will restate my question and ask a subject matter specialist if you can get to perhaps try to answer my questions, because that I do believe we do.
I think the amendment is designed to ask the questions that you are asking so that we get exactly that information.
OK, well, The recordings in question are part of standard investigative process.
So I would suggest that when we are asking how SPD ensures the authenticity of recordings and the accurate identification of individuals in audio recordings obtained, are we talking about in general, how are audio recordings authenticated in general practice or in each Recording and I will also ask Captain Brit if you have any input here.
Thank you, Councilmember.
Like you said previously, the Authenticity of the recording is established by standard investigative process.
Anytime we're conducting an investigation, any evidence that's obtained, including audio recordings, is validated for its authenticity.
Further, when we go to court, it's validated by the court process regarding admissibility.
Defendants in court have the opportunity to challenge the validity we make our case in court, and ultimately a judge in pretrial motions determines the validity of the audio recording.
So there are checks and balances in the process even beyond our involvement in that.
But when we're creating a recording or when we're seeking a recording, the standard investigative process, which could include witness testimony and information from officers on scene or detectives involved in the investigation, would all feed into validating that audio recording as part of the investigative process.
Thank you.
All right.
Any other comments?
Member Brian Maxey's hand is raised.
Thank you very much.
Go ahead, Mr. Maxey.
I mean, I just want to echo what Captain Britt has said.
And there's no technological mechanism to ensure this authenticity.
This is done through the investigative process, either the declaration of the officer that or a wire or the under the CIA that wore the wire or and all of this is done pursuant to a warrant.
So the target of the use of the wire is already pre-established by the the warrant application.
And then, as Captain Britt said, what the use of this is in terms of prosecution, where both the department through the prosecutor has the obligation to and the burden to prove the authenticity of this and present it under a beyond the reasonable doubt standard.
So I feel that there are many controls in place on this.
So this would be our answer to the question.
So whether we need the amendment moving forward, I don't know, or whether we can just add it into the SIR at this point with this question answered.
Council Member Herbold.
I just wanted to sort of redirect the issue back to Lisa Kay.
Did you, do you feel like having heard the response from SPD here that that gets at the intent of the working group?
or is there some additional sort of texture, if you will, to the desire to understand the authenticity of records process?
I wasn't party to the working group's deliberations, but in just reading their comments and their concerns, as well as some of the comments raised by members of the public and just doing my own research, I think that the question would be really whether any of that authenticity is verified and how it's verified before it ever gets to the court.
So I understand that the court will make a ruling and that that is a very strong check on the use of these, particularly through the warrants.
But I suspect that the working group may have been concerned about how information could be promulgated potentially inaccurately if for some reason these recordings weren't authentic and that that inauthenticity wasn't found until it came to the court.
Does that make sense?
Yep.
So a desire that for the department to have some sort of process before it gets caught into the court system.
Yes.
And I think the surveillance impact report was did speak to investigative procedures, but those aren't transparent necessarily.
And as to Mr. Maxey, I don't think the council can amend the surveillance impact report as that's supposed to be documenting how the police department operates.
And so we would potentially, if you wanted to update this or now, we might want to hold off on it.
Go ahead.
For convenience, I only have the IVAS SIR printed in front of me, but does the SIR for audio recordings respond to a concern by the working group on this matter?
No.
No, it doesn't.
Okay.
Well, in What I heard saying, Council Member Herbold, you are saying that you want you want to understand that the working group wants to understand better these procedures before these come into investigation.
No, before the not before investigation, before the SPD referred to sort of the inherent controls existent in the court process and the the limitations around getting warrants, due process, et cetera.
But I think the request is about what the internal processes are to SPD before those other legal processes are, not so much before investigation, but before the sort of inherent controls of the legal system.
are sort of kick in.
What are the policy-based controls that the department has?
But I'm happy to withdraw this for now, Chair Nelson, and work with you on how to bring something forward that I think better addresses both of our questions about that.
I appreciate that, Council Member Herbold.
And at last meeting, I think that there was mentioned that it would be beneficial for this whole, you know, going forward, it seems as though there could be better communication between the Seattle Police Department and the working group.
The working group does bring, you know, does take into account the questions that are posed by members of the public.
And so it just seems like if we could all sit around a table and some of these issues and SPD could perhaps explain a lot of the, The internal processes that that govern and limit their ability to use these technologies and basically.
How do they launch an investigation?
And how are controls imposed by the courts?
Maybe that would help going forward.
Because to my understanding, a lot of the people, well, there are seven members of the working group.
I think only four are in panel right now.
One is a representative from the ACLU.
But I don't know how familiar the other members are of some of these police processes.
So with that, thank you very much.
We'll put this amendment aside.
And let's move on to the next, please.
Okay.
Okay, you see Amendment 2 on your screen now.
This would prohibit the use of biometrics on or with the Seattle Police Department's audio recording systems unless council approves their use through acceptance of a revised or a new surveillance impact report.
And you'll see that biometrics is defined here as technology used to identify a person based on physical characteristics, which may include a person's fingerprints, DNA, retinas, voice or face.
And I was advised by SPD as I was preparing my staff report that the police department does not currently use any type of biometric technology in conjunction with these devices.
I will turn this over to the sponsor.
And I do see Mr. Stringer's hand up as well.
Was that hand up for the previous item and I missed you?
No, it's for this item.
Good morning, council members.
I just was seeking some clarification on the, I don't know if my video on or not, but I was seeking some clarification on what the use of biometrics means as far as like collecting biometrics and aggregating that data with audio recording systems or using any kind of biometric identification in conjunction with the audio recording devices.
So just seeking some clarity on that.
Okay.
I appreciate that, and I would like Councilmember Herbold to speak to this amendment and incorporate answers to your question if she is best capable of doing so.
Sure.
Just to start with what I understand to be the answer, and Lisa, correct me if I'm wrong, we're speaking kind of broadly as it relates to the use of biometrics, and we're referring to the acquisition of technology that would allow the department to identify a person based on characteristics, physical characteristics, which may include a person's fingerprints, DNA, retina, voice or face.
And so this is really focused, again, on the acquisition of technology that would allow you to allow SPD to do this.
And I think this is what we discussed in our last committee meeting is sort of a belts and suspender approach.
I think everybody, we all agree that this would be a separate technology and under the surveillance ordinance, the understanding is that SPD would have to come back and go through that process of developing a SIR for that, but much like we did on facial recognition technology, with the co-sponsorship of Council Member Peterson when this work was going through his committee, we sort of took that belts and suspender approach with facial recognition technology as well in order to offer some assurances to community members who sort of want the council to make that extra statement above and beyond just the recognition that these technologies go through this process.
Thank you.
Well, Mr. Maxey.
So I think Council Member Herbold is correct that this is already part and parcel of the requirements of the surveillance ordinance itself.
We could not acquire technology that allows us to do this absent another tour of the surveillance ordinance and coming back to this body.
But I worry that some of the phrasing of this could have some unintended consequences.
For example, we do take DNA, we do take fingerprints.
And we do have technology that's used to examine that DNA.
And if that's part of the validation process of who the person that we are recording, for example, if we had a room that we can't see into and we believe there's only one person in there, we could rely on DNA technology or analysis to say the person that was in that room was so-and-so that corresponds to the voice that we're presenting to a court.
it's not so much a technology, it's more of an investigative process that we discussed in the prior amendment that could be used to validate this.
Similarly, the voice, we do not have technology that will compare voices, but we might have a prior recording of a person and then use that against the audio recording to validate that we have the correct person.
When I said earlier that it was broad, I guess I failed to recognize it is broad as it relates to biometrics on or with the audio recording systems.
So it's related to a particular technology.
Is that correct, Lisa?
That is how it is written.
Mr. Maxey is correct that there is some ambiguity there in terms of, I think the initial response that the department doesn't use biometrics with this probably was intended at the very high level, but in terms of when you get down to the actual analysis of how you're going to authenticate or how you're looking at these recordings, that it would seem that these analytical tools are in fact used, is what I heard Brian say, Mr. Maxey say.
Am I accurate there, Mr. Maxey?
Yeah, or they could be, yes.
And I think I fully understand the intent of this, and I'm not in any way speaking about that.
It's just the devil's always in the details, and I just worry about collateral effects.
Which I would say, I'm sorry.
No, go ahead, please.
I think that is a serious concern here.
I'm not a lawyer.
I think there is some potential risk in this amendment compromising current practice, if in fact- This one's not ready for prime time either?
Apparently not.
All right.
Well, at least we're using this time to daylight these amendments.
Yes.
Okay.
Let's move on.
Okay.
Captain Britt, did you want to add anything before we move on?
No, ma'am, Mr. Maxey covered it all.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
OK, we're looking at Amendment 3 right now.
This would ask the police department to identify the manufacturers and vendors of the audio recording systems that are described in the surveillance impact report that would be approved by or would be accepted by the council.
And as was mentioned at your first hearing, the police department prefers not to publicly disclose this information.
to avoid the risk of countermeasures and due to safety concerns for officers and cooperating witnesses.
I believe Council Member Herbold saw asking for manufacturers and vendors at a kind of a 30,000 foot level as opposed to a level of specificity that would be risky to the police officers.
Just a much more narrowly tailored ask.
that hopefully does not have the same vulnerabilities that SPD had expressed concern with last time.
How is this a narrower ask?
It's only requesting the identity of the manufacturers and vendors.
And non-specific model names and numbers.
Okay.
Captain Britt.
Thank you, ma'am.
And while I appreciate the council members' efforts to broaden the ask to protect that, this request still has the potential to cause the same risks that were identified previously.
Should a manufacturer or a vendor that is disclosed in this process have a limited number of devices or similarly operating devices, it would still lay us open for the potential for countermeasures or dangers to our cooperating witnesses or our undercover officers that utilize this technology.
Isn't this information that would be disclosable under a public disclosure request?
It's just that would depend on the nature of the public disclosure request, the nature of the investigation involved and the decision of the judge overseeing the case.
But I'll defer to Becca.
No, it's not.
I'm not I'm not saying about a particular case.
I'm saying the city makes a purchase and who you are doing, who you are making the purchase from.
is public information.
I'll defer to Becca Boatwright for the questions on the legality of disclosure.
Rebecca?
I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?
The information requested in this amendment, simply the manufacturers and vendors, of the purchased audio recording systems, that's public information, correct?
It completely depends.
We would be providing third party notice to the vendor and the vendor would most likely intervene in the request.
Okay, back to my framing question, how does the listing of the identities of the manufacturers and vendors of the recording systems better protect the civil liberties and prevent against disparate impacts?
I think the recent experience the city has had with Acela is a really good example why it's important for the city to know who we're doing business with that particular contractor who we no longer do business with.
Um, has a history of illegal sales, bribery, um, and, um, uh, privacy advocates were, um, have been, um, raising the, uh, sort of the flag about, um, our involvement purchasing, um, these products from Asala.
And because of that transparency, um, we've made different purchasing decisions with public tax dollars.
Omari, please, I see your hand up.
Yeah, I just wanted to clarify, I think Council Member referring to a Cyclica, Acela is another IT platform that- Oh, thank you, sorry.
Pedals permitting, I was like, wait, putting my IT hat on.
Yeah, I think, you know, with that, and the working group has expressed concerns, again, about what devices are used.
Council Member Nelson, to kind of answer your question, I think it helps them kind of put together, if I'm understanding their perspective of what is presented and what is the capabilities of the technology to assess it.
I think that being said, a lot of these technologies, regardless of manufacturer or vendor, are kind of in the same, it's a microphone that records, right?
But I think the intent of that ask is to kind of validate that, what are other options out there?
What devices are being used?
So I think it's one of those, wanting to verify and provide oversight is the reason behind the ask.
But I think that has to be balanced with SPD's request that that information not be given due to potential countermeasures.
So I think that's the real, the balancing question here.
Thank you.
Well, I am.
I am concerned about the potential of rendering the functionality of these devices moot if people can find a workaround and figure out how not to be recorded.
And so that is the question that is driving me, because as was mentioned before, some vendors perhaps only make one product.
So it would be fairly easy to get the specs on that product, even if you don't even if the more broad ask has been narrowed to simply manufacturers and vendors and not make and model, for example.
Omari.
Sorry, that was my hand still up.
Okay.
If there are no other comments, I will now move this amendment.
Is that what I am supposed to do here?
I'm sorry.
I thought we were going through all of them.
Oh, OK.
Go through all of them.
That's easier for me.
That's way easier for me.
OK.
Great.
And I think there's just one more on this bill.
Yes.
OK.
So we will move now to amendment number four.
This amendment is similar to all the amendments passed for previous surveillance impact reports, which also omitted to provide metrics to the chief technology officer for that office's use in annual equity assessments.
So this amendment would ask the police department to provide those metrics to the clerk by the end of this year.
Thank you, Lisa.
Yeah, so this is just, again, this follows uh, the requirements that we have, um, included on reporting on, um, the metrics that they use for, for annual equity assessments that they already do.
Um, they're required to do, um, and it just is replicates the amendments that, um, we have included in the CSRS for previous technologies approved by the council.
So just it's a template amendment, hopefully not a big deal.
I have not looked at those other CSRS, so could somebody please speak to whether or not you could just use the other the other metrics for this technology for this group of technologies?
I think
If I may, Madam Chair, the issue is that the SIR has a number of questions that the departments answer.
One of the questions is, what will be the metrics that you're going to give this chief technology officer so they know how to measure the equity impacts of your particular device?
Those metrics have never been provided in any of the SIRs that have come to council to date.
I think Omari explained this in a previous iteration, that the departments were kind of waiting to see what the Council was going to do before they provided those metrics.
And so the Council has kind of provided a nudge each time saying we really would like you to give the metrics so that the CTO knows how to do their assessment.
So basically, are we trying to get at whether or not the use of this technology is used more often in in investigations in which a particular group of people are being investigated compared to another group of people?
Is that because this is, we're looking at technology and use during an investigation.
So that is the, is that the pool that we're looking at to apply the metrics to?
Yes, and you'll see, I mean, the CTO has done equity assessments, I believe, to date of one or two of the surveillance technologies already.
I may ask Omari to speak a little bit more to that.
But yes, it's basically broadly looking at any data they can track in terms of disproportionate civil liberties impacts from the use of these technologies.
Okay, Omari, you had your hand up first, please.
Yeah, so I can speak a little bit more to the equity metrics.
So by the ordinance, the CTO is required every year by September 15th to submit the surveillance technology community equity impact assessment and policy guidance report.
We call it the equity impact assessment for short.
And essentially, we have a couple of things that we're looking at in that one of them is an evaluating of the ordinance in this process, if we're meeting the city's race and social justice initiative goals, As well as looking at any if any communities or groups in the city are disproportionately impacted by the use of these technologies.
As far as addition to what adjustments, we should make to the law and any new approaches, we should consider in these reviews.
We also consult with the working group as a part of that they get a draft and they provide feedback and recommendations on it.
I think the idea is these amendments and the SIR provides an opportunity for departments to provide to us the metrics under which we will evaluate them by as kind of an oversight function.
So this is kind of how the equity measurement is baked into the ordinance because the CTO is required to take a look at that every year and see, you know, are there disproportionate usage patterns in some of these technologies given the wide range of technologies, the different use cases.
We rely on the departments to give us that information as far as what makes sense, as far as, you know, tracking deployments.
For example, with the Cyclica SDOT system, those were kind of, we used peanut butter around the city, right?
So there may be the question about equity is where are you deploying it versus who are you using it with, right?
So there are different, measurements or dimensions of equity that we want to look at.
And I think this is just giving the department the opportunity.
Since these are used in investigations, I would imagine the pool, the demographics of folks that would be used on this are the same folks that are under investigation, but I'll let SPD speak to that more.
Mr. Maxey.
Brian.
Yeah, so I you know we are always interested in exploring the impacts of our operations and activities under the race and social justice lens so we have no objections to this.
This this amendment.
It does.
I mean, it is difficult, especially in the world of policing to accurately come up with metrics to analyze this that's that legitimately assesses the impact of this to what Amari just said.
The denominator in this case would likely be individuals where we have probable cause to investigate or reasonable suspicion to investigate.
That would be your denominator.
And then within the pool of that group, is there a disproportionate use of this technology on any demographic or certain group.
So that would be a, I think, a narrowly tailored metric overlaid on top of our general investigations metric.
And we will have to dig a little deeper to find out what what we have in our investigation files to create that denominator.
But certainly by December, we can provide the metrics and the plan to assess the the equity of this technology.
I'm also heartened to hear and I just wanted to confirm that, you know, this, this type of amendment is going to all departments and not just the Seattle Police Department.
You know, we've talked about race and data quite frequently in the public sphere.
You know, I went to data.seattle.gov to find out what other departments provide race data.
And I was unable to find any other department other than the Seattle Police Department that puts that information out publicly on data.seattle.gov.
So I'm heartened to hear that this is being equally applied and we have no problem with it.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Moving on, I think that's the last amendment for this particular bill.
So do you want me to chair Nelson as your your pleasure, I can go back and move individually the two amendments I'm still intending to bring forward this morning.
That is fine.
All right, great.
Thank you so much.
With that, I move amendment three as listed on the agenda requesting the department to provide a report to the clerk identifying the manufacturer and vendor of the audio recording systems in the report.
Thank you very much.
It's, is there a second.
I'll second it because we spent a long time talking about this.
Second.
Thank you.
Appreciate that.
And just happy to, for the record, I appreciate the courtesy second.
Thank you.
And I don't really have anything more to add.
This is not information that would have a negative impact on a law enforcement investigation.
This is information that I believe is public information because it is simply the name of a manufacturer who is also the vendor.
It's not information about a specific product.
And it's about the purchaser of, it's about the identity of the vendor who SPD purchases products from.
And that is public information because it relates to the use of our tax dollars.
It is not information that is privileged or can be withheld, to my understanding, by the request of a third party.
Thank you.
Are there any other comments from my colleagues?
So what I heard Rebecca say is that that manufacturers could move to basically try to block the release of this information.
Is that correct, Rebecca?
I think that's not as easy.
But.
I think that's a risk.
OK, Again, I come back to, does this enhance the civil liberties of Seattle residents?
And that has to be balanced against the ability of the Seattle Police Department to do thorough investigations.
And I am going to err on the side of the concerns of the department on this one.
OK.
All right.
If there are no other comments, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 3?
Council Member Strauss?
Yes.
Council Member Herbold?
Yes.
Chair Nelson?
No.
The motion carries.
Amendment 3 is adopted, and the amended bill is before the Council.
Lisa, please walk us through the next amendment.
I think we already did.
Can I just move it for sake of?
Yes.
Appreciate that.
Thank you so much.
I'd like to move Amendment 4 as listed on the agenda, requiring the police department to provide notification on the metrics that will be provided to the CTO for use in the annual equity assessments that they do.
I second that.
I have nothing further to add beyond, again, recognizing Council Member Peterson is the previous chair who used to see this and hear this legislation, who kind of created this as a precedent to replicate in the technologies moving forward.
Okay, it's been moved and seconded to adopt amendment four is presented on the agenda.
Council Member Herbold, thank you very much for bringing this to our attention.
Are there any further comments before we take the roll?
Okay, seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on adoption of amendment four?
Council Member Strauss?
Yes.
Council Member Herbold?
Yes.
Chair Nelson?
Yes.
Three in favor, none opposed.
Okay.
The motion carries.
Amendment four is adopted and the amended bill is before the council.
Are there any further comments on the amended bill?
Okay.
Will the clerk please call the roll on, will the clerk call the roll on the committee recommendation that the bill pass as amended?
Council Member Strauss?
Yes.
Council Member Herbold?
Yes.
Chair Nelson?
Yes.
Three in favor, none opposed.
Okay.
The motion carries the community recommendation that the bill pass will be forwarded to City Council on May 17th, 2022 for final consideration.
And we now go on to passage of Council Bill 120309. I move that the committee recommends passage of Council Bill 120309. Is there a second?
Okay, it's been moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.
There are five amendments to this bill.
Before consideration of each amendment, Lisa Kay of Council Central Staff will provide a high-level overview of the bill and then walk us through the first amendment before the sponsor moves it.
Lisa, please begin the presentation.
Thank you.
I will share my screen again.
And for everyone out there, we're talking about Amendment 5.
I think we're going to be talking about Amendment 1.
Oh, excuse me.
It is one of this bill.
It's in my list.
It's one of five.
But yes, the five is there for a reason.
That makes sense.
Sorry.
Throwing a wrench in there.
That's fine.
OK, so this is an amendment to Council Bill 120-309 that would approve IBM's i2iBase link analysis software.
So it would prove the ongoing use of this and accept the surveillance impact report.
As you heard last week, this technology is used during criminal investigations to help detectives visualize connections between individuals, known entities, vehicles, locations, and other data.
As you mentioned, there are five amendments before the committee today.
The first four are sponsored by Council Member Herbold, and the fifth is sponsored by Council Member Strauss.
So with your permission, I can just move ahead to amendment one.
That is fine, thank you.
Trying to shrink it on the screen so that it will all show up.
Okay.
Amendment one would ask the police department to report by January 31st of next year on data and records retention policies and or guidelines that are applicable to the use and the operation of this technology.
The amendment specifically asks the police department to identify to the extent feasible Retention policies that comply with the minimum retention period allowed by state and federal law and define a clear process for deletion of records after the retention period has been expired.
And you heard during your first meeting that the police department retains manually added data after five years, which is really the federal maximum requirement.
The state law enforcement records retention schedule for intelligence files, for example, requires retention until no longer needed for agency business.
But federal law allows for a retention period of up to five years.
So SPD applies that five-year period to all manually entered data.
That concludes my overview.
Council Member Herbold, would you like to speak further?
Sure.
And I thought, and I'm really, I apologize if that was your, if your intent in the first piece of legislation was for us to take and vote on each amendment as they come, and I'm happy to do it that way.
I thought I heard that was in your instructions for this bill, that you wanted to vote on amendment, hear amendment one from Lisa Kay, and then vote on it, and then move to the next one.
Is that what you prefer?
I believe that the process we just went through went well.
Okay, so why don't we continue with that.
Okay, perfect.
Thank you so much.
So, um, in that case, I'd like to just allow Lisa to just go through the amendments and I'll speak to them when I move them.
That's okay.
Sure, I do.
But let's not get too far away so I guess I will ask a specific question about this because.
this particular one while we're on it.
So the question is, will records be retained for five years maximum or three years maximum?
And what I've been trying to understand is to what extent will retaining the records for less amount of time have negative impacts on continuing cases or or appeals.
And so that is what I have asked Seattle Police Department about.
In other words, does this put the city at additional exposure if those records are no longer available, if the city is trying to defend ourselves or or aid in in defending a suspect that was subject to these investigations.
So can...
The amendment doesn't promulgate a particular records retention policy.
It simply asks what the records retention policy is.
It says, The report identifies a retention policy that complies with the minimum retention period allowed by state law and federal law, but also includes a clear deletion oversight process to ensure deletion of manually added data after the specified retention period.
So I mean, it speaks to both the minimum retention period allowed by state and federal law.
OK, SPD, what would be the real life impact of this?
So I guess I'll jump in first here and let Captain Britt clean up anything I say, and there's a couple of things in play here.
One is When we generate an I2I base link analysis, that is associated with the underlying investigative file and the retention for that document would track with whatever the investigation is.
So for example, homicide cases are maintained in perpetuity.
So if this was a homicide case, it would track with that.
If it were something else, it would track within the retention for that type of case.
So this request, as I understand it, is for us to identify what the retention policies are and present that back to the clerk.
And I see no problem doing that.
And I don't see this as mandatory that it comply with minimum retention periods.
I see that there's a value that's been put in there, but it does not appear to be.
mandatory, and certainly the feasibility, I'm assuming the legitimate law enforcement interests involved in that would go into the feasibility determination there.
The operative language is the reference to state law that retention should be until no longer needed for agency business, which you get to define.
Yeah, so if that's the request, I don't see a problem with us spelling this out and identifying what we're doing.
That's a fair request.
All right.
Let's go on to the next one, please.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Amendment two would ask the police department to report by October 31st of this year on the number of incidents over each of the past three years for which this software was deployed.
I think the only thing I have to add on that is that this is recommendation 12 from the working group.
It is not an issue addressed in the SIR, and it has been requested because of a belief that it is important for the public to understand how this technology is being used and the number of incidents per year.
Again, this data would It's data, it's not personally identifying data, and it would be governed by public disclosure laws anyhow.
Okay.
So to remind people, and I think that perhaps a description of the technology is warranted here, because this, my understanding is that IBASE is allows the department to see linkages.
EyeBase is not a technology that actually captures information from individuals or transmits it, etc.
So it's kind of like it allows for officers to see the relationships between individuals and in previous cases, et cetera.
So can you please speak to in general how often it is used and would it be easy to get that information?
I mean, would it be easy to report on that information, the number of incidents?
So I'll go ahead and speak to that.
This isn't something that we would be readily able to provide.
The number of incidents per year, it's a matter of, if you run one I2I-based link analysis, it could link to 32 incidents.
It could, like the example that was shown in council last session was 17 incidents related to one link analysis.
Once again, like the council member stated, this doesn't create a data set.
This simply analyzes data that already exists.
So this would be akin to asking us how often we put together a PowerPoint presentation, because all that is, is displaying the data that's already there.
So this isn't something that we would be prepared at this moment to provide for the last three years.
It was something that we would need to affirmatively start to track.
I'm happy to withdraw this one to discuss further with the working group the data set that can be analyzed that perhaps would satisfy the transparency requests here.
If not incidents, what?
I'm happy to take this amendment back to them for additional refinement.
Thank you.
Appreciate that.
Let's go on to the next.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Amendment 3 would ask the Police Department to report by January 31 of next year on the employee access policies and guidelines applicable to the use and operation of this software.
It asks the report to identify, to the extent feasible, a policy or procedures to prevent employee access to I-2 based records that are unrelated to their assigned investigations.
SPD reported last week that two civilian SPD analysts and one civilian Seattle's IT employee currently have access, that only two of the two civilian analysts can produce the visualizations for detectives, but that multiple detectives can ask for this kind of assistance.
Okay.
Are there any other comments?
Captain Britt?
Yes, ma'am.
In speaking with the analyst that was on the call last week, we have draft policy ready to work through the process.
So should this amendment be passed, we should be able to meet the January 2023 requirement.
Thank you very much.
Okay, moving on to Amendment 4, please.
Amendment four is the same equity metrics amendment that you considered for the audio recording devices.
Nothing more to say about that one.
That's the same amendment as we had already addressed in the other bill.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
And let's go on to the last one, please.
Okay.
This amendment is sponsored by Council Member Strauss.
It would ask the executive to include funding in the mid-year supplemental budget for the Office of Inspector General to retain a consultant to evaluate and report on the civil liberties risks associated with SPD's use of the software.
They'd ask for the report by March 31st of next year.
The request asks that the report include an analysis of the accuracy of the data that is manually input into the software the accuracy of the linkages that are identified by users of the software, and demographic information about the individuals and groups identified in the visualizations that are produced with the software.
I'll turn this over to Councilmember Strauss.
Councilmember Strauss?
Thank you, Chair.
Here in the great city of Ballard, working from the district office today, thank you for your time.
Amendment 5, this amendment would request that the supplemental budget include funding for an independent evaluation on the risks associated with eye-based technologies, including the risks to civil liberties, data accuracy, and the accuracy of the linkages that the system identifies.
The cost of such an assessment is around $100,000 similar to other consultant reports we've funded.
And I know from funding the water safety study this last year that those numbers can change.
I think that it is important to have this assessment as any assessment would be overseen by the inspector general for public safety even though it is completed by an independent consultant.
I recognize that this request would require funding in a difficult budget year and my amendment would not prohibit the use of this technology.
It only makes clear that the assessment is needed and that we should work to fund it.
While there would be a small fiscal impact If we're able to secure funding for such a risk assessment, the reality is that if this technology is misused, it would send someone to prison wrongfully.
I don't necessarily think that's going to happen.
I just find that having this third party accountability does provide additional protections for SPD, for the city of Seattle, and for the people of our city.
A small pocket of funding for a consultant to evaluate that risk is worthwhile.
That's, I think that is worthwhile.
I mean, and at the end of the day, if it prevents prosecutions based on faulty information, that's money well spent.
If it just simply is an accountability measure that demonstrates SPD is using this in the correct fashion, that's a good use of funding because it does provide accountability and third-party evaluation for all parties involved.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you.
How is this?
I have you talked to the inspector general inspector general judge about this?
I guess what I'm one of my questions is, After passage of the SIRs, then it's now on their plate to evaluate for a year or three the deployment of these technologies.
And they take into account a lot of the, I think, the questions that we've been talking about now, disparate impacts and so on.
Would this be, do they just start doing that work until this consultant report is finished?
Can you describe the mechanics of how this will work?
Yeah, it's my understanding that the report would be overseen by the inspector general and completed by the third party consultant.
Okay.
Got it.
Are there any comments from the department?
So I did have one, IBASE links different investigations.
So if data is entered into a case, as we were presented last time, someone in Kent, but the bullets were found in Seattle.
I mean, would they, I'm just wondering, would this consultant report also verify the processes by which and the accuracy of by which data is input into cases in other jurisdictions?
I think that's probably a question And, you know, what I can tell you is that growing up there were two people in the city of Seattle with my name and with my father's name, I would regularly receive mail for that person.
My father would regularly receive mail for.
for the other person.
You know, this was in a day and age where things were a little bit more simple, and this day and age with so many levels of technology, being able to connect.
I think Mr. Maxey described it at the last meeting is, if you'd see those old detective videos of linking, you know, pictures on a wall and linking with the string from each thing to another, In a world where technology is now doing that for us, I do think that it is important that we have independent evaluation to ensure that we're not making the old mistakes that I had described about having two people with the same name or anything else.
But the scope of the evaluation, I think that that is iterative and if you have input, I think it would be welcome.
Point taken and just try being Sarah Nelson.
Okay.
Council Member, you've got both Omari and Brian have their hands raised, and I have a comment that I can, if neither of them speak to what I was gonna say.
Okay, I do not know if Brian or Omari was first, so could the person who had their hand up first please speak?
I'm not sure.
Brian, you can go ahead.
No, you go.
You were first.
I'm certain.
All right.
So I just wanted to point out more of a comment than a question, maybe both.
Just wanting to flag for the committee that the OIG does do audits on a regular basis.
I think in the ordinance, it's supposed to be on a yearly basis.
So if they haven't been, I don't know if they were consulted in the drafting of this, but I think just making sure that that can align with maybe their audit for that year or just kind of Working that into their schedule for their annual audits.
I just wanted to flag that as a potential concern here.
I appreciate that, and that was a more eloquent way of basically saying what I was trying to say, and right now they are they're charged with annual audits.
And I do know that they have expressed that their staffing needs make that difficult.
But making sure that they are in alignment, I think is important.
Okay.
All right.
Brian?
Oh, you know, we didn't speak up earlier because it's not really our place to say what the OIG should be doing.
We accept that they have unfettered access to our systems for efficient oversight.
I just, in hearing the description of this, though, it sounds like this is almost an audit of our investment an audit of the use of this technology.
Because when we create links between entities in eye to eye base.
I mean that is based on investigation and belief that there is a link there.
And then that gets explored and if the link is, is accurate then it was maintained and if it's not, it will be.
decoupled.
So there's a whole host of investigative processes that go along with this.
And to the question about integrating information from other jurisdictions, you know, certainly, you know, we may be bringing information that other jurisdictions provide.
And I know we think about this in terms of people entities, but keep in mind, this also deals with, you know, locations, NIBIN, Shell casing analysis and there's a whole host of things that gets connected within this system, so this is not just about people.
And the civil liberties that track with it, it does have that so that is certainly a component.
So my concern here is you know whether this becomes an audit of the investigation writ large or whether we are trying to audit the use of this technology in investigations.
Yes, I see that.
Go ahead.
Thank you, Chair Nelson.
And thank you, Mr. Maxey, for that clarification.
From our regular meetings with investigations and talking about investigations, I don't think that's the intent to audit your investigations department, rather that how this technology is being used, the capabilities of it, and ensuring that It is protecting civil liberties, and I do see this as, with this third party accountability, as also protecting SPD from any unwarranted criticisms or daylighting vulnerabilities that we need to work to protect.
Thank you.
Lisa, did you want to say anything?
You had your hand up way back when.
Brian did speak to my point.
question about looking at external agencies.
I think in terms of OIG's work capacity, that is probably a reasonable question.
The reason this was structured in a way to have OIG hire an outside consultant is multi-pronged.
One was to minimize the impact on their workload because they are very busy.
The second is recognizing that this really is going into a level of depth beyond what they would be doing in their annual reports and would require probably a lot more subject matter expertise on behalf of the consultant who would be doing it than perhaps they would be doing with their annual reports.
Okay, well, operationally, I'm wondering, and I don't have an opinion here, but Is it possible to change this amendment before we vote on this legislation in full council so that it's not as broad as Brian was talking about, but that it still gets into protecting the civil liberties of the people surfaced in the deployment of I-BASE?
Is that a good way to go?
So you have two options at least here.
One, you could amend this in committee right now.
You could put a period after civil liberties risks, and then you would have no more specificity there with an amendment to the amendment.
Otherwise, if the committee chose to pass this the way it is now, a council member could bring an amendment to council and have that considered by the full council.
Councilmember stress chair Nelson and Brian definitely you know feel free to jump in here with due respect I do think that this amendment.
the IBM i2 baselink analysis software.
I don't see in this amendment anywhere requesting an audit of investigations.
I think that this is well-written as it stands.
I don't necessarily see us needing to change it.
I think that our conversation may have taken us in different tangents and directions because we're having a larger conversation than what's written on the piece of paper.
Okay, so Brian.
I mean, very specifically, the language that I'm squinting at here is the line that says the accuracy of linkages identified by users of IBM, I2I base software.
That's the line that in my mind reads, you know, we need to test and validate whether they got the, whether the legitimacy or the accuracy of that link was supported by the investigative findings.
So that's where, in my mind, it digs deeper.
And I think that, yeah, thank you, Chair.
And thank you, Brian, for that feedback.
With due respect, I do think that that is important to keep in here for the time being.
I think that that is probably the smallest aspect of this whole request.
And I don't necessarily, and if we need to have a conversation with the third party consultant so that we're focused on the software, I do think that removing the accuracy of the data manually input If the majority of data is manually input, then we're not.
We've just cut out a majority of the information.
And so I'm not necessarily trying to analyze how that information is identified previously before being input.
But once it is input, making sure that I want to make sure that the data is correct.
And I think that, honestly, for SPD, this is another way to demonstrate from a third party that your criticisms are unfounded for this.
And so this is a balanced amendment that provides SPD, a third party consultant, a third party validation of your work.
And it also ensures that civil liberties aren't being compromised.
May I also note that the Office of Inspector General does serve the function as the auditor.
intelligence auditor for the police department.
Okay, well, is there a way would Councilmember Strauss would you be amenable to when crafting the scope of this contract?
make sort of work this out.
I think a refining on accuracy of the word accuracy of I think maybe through that process could perhaps meet the comments that were made by Brian while still maintaining the integrity of your mission.
Chair, I think everyone on this call knows that I work well with others, and that I'm always welcome to input.
And the number of meetings that I invite Mr. Maxey to, I think that he knows that I will take his input.
So yes, ma'am.
OK.
Thank you very much.
OK.
I think that we are now in a position.
Are there any other questions about this amendment?
OK.
Going back.
Council Member Herbold, you're recognized to move the First Amendment.
Sorry about that.
A little slow on the draw here.
Very appreciated, Madam Chair.
I would like to move Amendment 1 that, in short, requests that the Police Department provide a report to the clerk that includes their data and records retention policies.
Second.
Thank you.
It's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 1 as presented on the agenda.
Council Member Herbold is sponsored.
You're recognized to address it.
Are there any other comments on Amendment 1?
None necessary.
Thank you.
OK.
Thank you.
All right.
Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 1?
Council Member Strauss?
Council Member Herbold?
Yes.
Chair Nelson?
Aye.
Three in favor, none opposed.
The motion carries.
Amendment 1 is adopted and the amended bill is before the council.
Please walk us through the next amendment.
Let's see.
Council Member Herbold, I cannot recall if you tabled Amendment 2 or 3, so could you please go to the next one?
I tabled Amendment 2. Thank you very much.
And with that, I move amendment three listed on the agenda.
And that is the request for the policies and procedures preventing employee access to the IMB, I-2, I-based link analysis software records.
Second.
Okay, it's been moved and seconded to adopt amendment three as presented on the agenda.
Are there any comments, further comments on Amendment 3?
No, thank you.
Okay.
Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 3?
Council Member Strauss?
Yes.
Council Member Herbold?
Yes.
Chair Nelson?
Aye.
Three in favor, none opposed.
The motion carries.
Amendment 3 is adopted and the amended bill is before the Council.
And now we go on to Amendment 4.
Thank you.
I move amendment four is listed on the agenda requiring the police department to provide to the clerk, the notification on what the metrics are that they use provided to the chief technology officer for the annual equity assessments that they already do for the I B M I to I base link analysis software.
Second.
All right, it's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 4 as presented on the agenda.
Council Member Herbold, do you have any further comments?
Or colleagues, do you have any further comments?
Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 4?
Council Member Strauss?
Yes.
Council Member Herbold?
Yes.
Chair Nelson?
Aye.
Three in favor, none opposed.
The motion carries.
Amendment 4 is adopted and the amended bill is before council.
And then finally, we will now move on to Amendment 5. Council Member Strauss.
Yes, thank you.
I would like to move Amendment 5, version 1A from Council Bill 130309. Second.
It's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 5 as presented on the agenda.
Are there any further comments or questions from my colleagues?
Okay.
Will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of Amendment 5. Council Member Strauss?
Yes.
Council Member Herbold?
Yes.
Chair Nelson?
Aye.
Three in favor, none opposed.
The motion carries and Amendment 5 is adopted.
All right.
Will the clerk please call the, will the clerk call the roll on committee recommendation that the bill pass as amended?
Council Member Strauss?
Yes.
Council Member Herbold?
Yes.
Chair Nelson?
Aye.
Three in favor, none opposed.
All right.
Well, I believe that I think half of group for a has now been processed through this committee.
Um, and, uh, we this will go forward to full council on May 17th.
This concludes the May 11th meeting of the Economic Development, Technology and City Light Committee.
Our next meeting is scheduled for May 25th at 9 30 a.m.
Any other questions this morning before we adjourn business?
I mean, business Any jokes or poetry, et cetera?
Anything else for the good of the order?
All right, seeing none, this meeting is now adjourned.
Thank you, everybody.
Thank you all.