Public Safety Committee 5/14/2024

May 14th, 2024. I'm Robert Kettle, chair of the Public Safety Committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council Member Moore.

Present.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

Chair Kettle.

Here.

Chair, there are five members present and Council Member Morales is also with us.

Thank you, Council Member Morales, for joining us today and for co-sponsoring the legislation related to vacant buildings.

I really appreciate it.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Give them thumbs up.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comment should relate to the items on today's agenda or within the purview of this committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

Chair, there's one remote speaker.

Okay, thank you, Clerk.

Each speaker, the one speaker will have three minutes.

We will start with our remote speaker.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call in the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open and we'll begin with the first speaker on the list.

The first remote speaker is Cynthia Spies, Spice.

Sorry if I got that wrong.

Please press star six when you hear the prompt, you have been unmuted.

Go ahead, Cynthia.

Hi, I'm Cynthia Spies, a District 6 resident.

My comment today is regarding Agenda Item 7, the material update to SPD's Automated License Site Reader, or ALPR, surveillance impact report.

I wanted to make sure you all were aware that this change will enable red states to circumvent Washington state's SHIELD law and the Keep Washington Working Act, which are meant to protect, respectfully, women seeking reproductive health care and immigrant workers.

The material update includes moving from an on-premise database of licensed site reads to an off-premise, proper as a service, or cloud-hosted database managed by the vendor Acton.

Statements that STD follows state laws and the STD police manual do not address this risk because warrants or subpoenas for STD's ALTR data would not go to STD, but instead to Acton directly.

Moreover, a judge in a red state might issue a gag order on Acton, meaning that Acton might not even be able to notify the city of Seattle of our ALTR data being shared with jurisdictions outside of Washington.

This is a very real risk, and this tactic is already being used by the federal government to get California ALPR data of immigrants.

Seattle ALPR data has been saved from this, but as soon as SPD switches over to a cloud-hosted ALPR database, the red states will start issuing subpoenas to act on for Seattle ALPR data.

The primary way to ensure that red states can't access our data without going to the city of Seattle is by only storing the ALPR database on Sunnys.

If that is untenable, the secondary way to protect people is to reduce the data retention period for non-hits, that is, license plates not on a hot list, so that's innocent people, to at least 48 hours, as was requested by the Seattle Community Surveillance Working Group and the prior city council.

This material update is not just more of the same.

This is a significant expansion in mass surveillance, and it will harm visitors and residents of Seattle who Washington state lawmakers tried to protect.

If you approve of this council bill as is, and you're actively making Seattle no longer a sanctuary city for either women and girls or immigrants.

Thank you.

Thank you.

There are no additional registered speakers.

That's your drink.

Okay, we'll proceed to our next item of business.

I will thank you, the public speaker.

I understand the point that was being made, and it will be part of the process as we review the ALPR topic.

We will now move to our first five items of business.

Will the clerk please read items one through five into the record?

Agenda items one through five.

I've got to turn it down.

Appointments 2845 through 2849. The appointments of Lauren Branford, Matt Trueblood as members of the Seattle Code, the Seattle Fire Code Advisory Board from terms to three years from council confirmation and reappointments of Carlene M. Comrie, Kevin Marr, and Chris Todd as members of Seattle Fire Code Advisory Board for terms from 2 August 14th to 2026.

Thank you, Clerk.

I move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointments 2845 through 2849. Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments and reappointments.

Are there any final comments?

None.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to confirm the appointments?

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Moore.

Yes.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Chair Kettle.

Aye.

The appointments carry with five yes votes and zero no votes.

Thank you.

And these appointments are confirmed and will be sent to the city council.

We will now move on to our next item of business.

Will the clerk please read item six into the record.

An ordinance relating to unsafe building abatement amending section 111 and section 202 of the 2018 fire code as adopted by section 22.600.020 of the Seattle Municipal Code and as regulated and allowed by the State Building Code Act chapter 19.27 of the Revised Code of Washington, declaring an emergency and establishing an immediate effective date all by a three-quarters vote of the City Council.

Briefing and discussion and possible vote with Chief Harold D. Scoggins of the Seattle Fire Department and Tommaso Johnson from Seattle City Council Central Staff.

Thank you, Clerk.

I move that the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120777. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Vice Chair Saka.

It is moved and seconded to recommend passage of the bill.

As chair, I will give brief remarks regarding the council bill, and I'll also offer an opportunity for the co-sponsor to provide remarks and then introduce central staff to give their presentation on it.

Thank you, everyone, for the opportunity to press forward on this very important topic.

Just yesterday, I was in Belltown with a group of neighbors who are facing a lot of public safety challenges.

A lot of them are related to crime and security, but also the issue of vacant buildings literally across the street.

And I will add there's a vacant lot next to that.

These buildings are creating true public safety threats for their community.

And this is something that we were seeing firsthand yesterday afternoon in Belltown.

And this is something that we're seeing throughout our city.

And this is a major issue.

This is not, you know, some random act.

This is a, you know, a...

an issue that's come through a strong process of identifying these buildings and really focusing on those that are public safety threats.

And this really goes also to our strategic framework to address the permissive environment that underlines these public safety challenges, those challenges that I was hearing again and again from about two dozen people last night, yes, late afternoon.

And the vacant buildings is an important piece to this.

Taking action will show that the city is serious about dealing with these issues that are affecting our community.

So I really appreciate the opportunity to have Council Bill 120777. And I'm also thankful to have Council Member Morales from District 2 to be the co-sponsor, even though she's not on the committee.

So Council Member Morales, if you would like to add anything, please go ahead.

Sure, thank you very much, Chair.

Good morning, colleagues.

I am glad to be able to co-sponsor this with Chair Kettle.

Between 2022 and 2023, we had over 60 fires in vacant buildings just in District 2. I know that this is a citywide issue, and many of you have experienced the same thing with vacant buildings.

So I think it's important that we move forward with this legislation and really appreciate the mayor and Chief Kettle, all of us working together to get something drafted so that we can allow the chief to address these nuisance buildings throughout the city and make sure that we're protecting our community members and make sure that we're protecting city workers.

So look forward to the vote today.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you.

Now we have...

Central staff, Tommaso, to brief on the topic, please.

Thank you for joining us today.

Good morning, Chair, members of the committee.

For the record, my name is Tommaso Johnson, Council Central Staff Analyst.

I will be providing a brief summary of the legislation as well as the analysis presented in the Central Staff Memo that you all are in receipt of.

As was mentioned, Council Bill 120777 addresses the Seattle Fire Department's abatement authority for dangerous buildings.

Draft legislation on this topic was discussed on the 23rd in this committee where there were presentations by the Fire Department as well as central staff on this issue.

The effect of the legislation is primarily twofold.

Number one, it clarifies the exercise of existing SFD abatement authority and summary abatement authority.

It does so by introducing new language into the Seattle Fire Code, providing the fire department with the authority to abate structures where the building or a portion thereof is found to be dangerous and the portion thereof is new language there.

It also requires that unsafe structures be taken down or made safe explicitly.

It clarifies that summary abatement authority can be invoked only if there's an imminent danger to life and property.

It also adds explicitly demolition power as a part of the summary abatement authority available to the fire department.

The belief of the fire department is that the international fire code on which Seattle's fire code is based includes demolition as a form of summary abatement, though that's not explicit and it would be made so under this bill.

Number two, the bill grants the city the ability to pursue cost recovery related to abatement activities, including demolition.

To do this, the bill cross-references the revised Code of Washington definition of public nuisance and allows the fire department to declare properties a public nuisance for the purpose of affecting lien authority that encumber against the property to pursue cost recovery.

The central staff memo on this legislation identified the following issues for consideration.

The fiscal note estimates a fiscal impact of 350,000 to 500,000 in 2024 for this legislation.

The fiscal impact beyond 2024 is unknown.

It depends on a variety of factors, including the number of sites that would be abated in ongoing years, as well as the costs associated with contracting for abatement activities, including potential demolitions.

Costs associated with this bill in 2024 will be requested as part of a mid-year supplemental budget.

Another issue related to the fiscal impact is the potential lag, the timeliness of cost recovery.

Should cost recovery be pursued, there may be costs that the city would be on the hook for, the recovery of which would take some time.

That's an unknown variable.

And of course, it's obligatory to note that these additional costs would, since the fire department is funded through general funds, additional costs here would impact the projected general fund operating deficit going forward and thereby reducing funds available to council for other priorities.

Other potential impacts identified by the central staff memo include operational impacts.

There may be the potential for additional staff capacity, staff cost in the fire department, as well as the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

Future development of lien sites may be impacted should the city invoke lien authority, the public nuisance lien authority.

That could have the potential to encumber those properties and inhibit future development on those sites.

There's also an issue related to historic districts.

Existing Seattle Municipal Code constrains changes, including but not limited to demolition on...

historic landmarks or properties within historic preservation districts.

The Central Staff Memo also identified race and social justice considerations related to this legislation, mostly related to the fact that a number of these properties that have been identified are disproportionately located in neighborhoods that are lower income and are a higher percentage of black, indigenous, and people of color residents.

So there's a potential that exercise of abatement authority could negatively impact property owners in those neighborhoods.

There is also, of course, the potential on the flip side of that, that these dangerous buildings are in those neighborhoods and abatement could positively impact those communities as well.

The central staff memo also spoke to the fact that some, to the extent that unhoused people are currently sheltering in dangerous buildings, this authority would remove those spaces from being available for shelter without adding additional safe shelter.

However, on the flip side of that, if these buildings are indeed dangerous and unfit for human habitation, then those are not necessarily safe or appropriate sites for people to be housed in general.

There are at this time two amendments to this legislation.

The first would clarify the definition of fire code official for the purposes of invoking a summary abatement demolition authority and specify that the fire chief and deputy fire chief serving as fire marshal are the sole individuals who have the ability to invoke demolition as part of summary abatement authority.

The Second Amendment would replace one of the bill's findings with a different finding, emphasizing the fact that vacant building fires pose particular risks to firefighters.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

And I appreciate the points that you raise and highlighting.

It's important.

Yes, there is a cost, but there's also the public safety cost.

And we will be diligent in terms of recuperating those costs from the owners of the properties.

And that's part of our responsibilities as a committee to follow up on that topic, to make sure that there's no hiccups in that process.

I'm sure there'll be some here and there, because already we have issues in terms of trying to find owners and so forth.

But the underlying thing is, as we kept saying, the flip side, as you keep saying, is the fact that this is a public safety threat.

And from a social justice perspective, yes, that's one reason why Council Member Morales is here.

But it also shows why it's important, because we need to look out for the interests of these communities, you know, to keep them safe, particularly the children, you know, in terms of if they were to get into these buildings, that would be a potential tragedy.

And I note your point about the landmark, and I really appreciate, by the way, I do listen to the public comment.

I listened to this morning's related to LPR, and I listened to last time's related to the landmark, and we'll speak to that So thank you, Mr. Johnson, and I really appreciate it.

I don't think we'll have Chief Scoggins.

Does he have any comments as well?

Oh, you're here just to answer questions?

Okay, thank you.

All right, moving on.

Thank you again, Mr. Johnson, for that summary.

Councilmember Saka, Vice Chair Saka, would you like to move Amendment Number 1?

So moved.

So, well, more, so I would like to move this committee, adopt amendment number one to council bill 120777. Do I have a second?

Second.

We have a couple seconds.

Any comments?

Any questions or comments to amendment number one?

Yeah, well, I guess first off, as well noted, there are over 100 entries currently in the SFD dangerous buildings list, and it currently has over...

100 entries and a subset of those buildings, approximately 40 as I understand, have already experienced at least one fire leading to an SFD response of some sort.

So obviously this is a very important piece of legislation that could literally save lives and transform safety in our city.

you know, like when they're, more specifically, when there's a structural collapse.

So, Mr. Chair, I want to thank you, Council Member Morales, and the mayor for your leadership in proposing this bill.

And, you know, I endeavor to do little things to try and make it a little better as well.

And this is what my proposed amendment exactly does.

More specifically, it clarifies who can summarily abate when there is an imminent danger to life and property, explicitly giving the fire chief and assistant fire chief, namely the fire marshal, that authority.

And I think the code already sort of contemplates that two and only two, those two officials have that authority, but there was, how I came up with this is because during the various briefings, there was kind of contemplation that potentially on-scene commanders could potentially make that call, and given the consequences and property implications and community implications of this, I think two and only two officials or should be statutorily empowered to make that call, and that's exactly what this amendment does, intended to clarify.

So, colleagues, I would ask for your support with this, but I welcome any questions, comments, or feedback.

Any questions?

I'll remind everyone I don't have a computer, so I don't have the Zoom hand today.

Okay.

Well, thank you, Vice Chair.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate the opportunity of going into this topic because it is illuminating.

It highlights, you know, the International Fire Code, the City of Seattle Fire Code, and going through the steps of, you know, the various elements of that.

So, thank you.

Will the Clerk please call the roll on adoption of Amendment 1?

Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Councilmember Moore.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Councilmember Saka.

Aye.

Chair Kettle.

Aye.

Chair, there are five yes votes and zero no votes.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I will move now to amend Council Bill 12077 as presented on Amendment 2. Regarding Amendment 2 to the Council Bill 12077, This amendment is basically just added to highlight the challenges and the risks that firefighters risk in these buildings, particularly when they've been compromised.

The structures may not be as they seem, and it creates a situation where being in despair, missing features, that these vacant buildings can more likely involve the entire building and basically facilitate the spread of the fire based on the fact that these buildings have been compromised.

So it's just basically a simple amendment to clarify that point and to make the point for the general public that, because I've heard this again and again, the firefighters going into these buildings, they're assuming one thing, based on their training, you know, in terms of the wall structures, you know, and the types and the different pieces of the structure.

But if they've been compromised and they don't necessarily know what has been compromised, that creates conditions of greater volatility and greater risk for the firefighters.

And so that is the basic premise and the point of this amendment.

Are there any questions?

I have one.

So I...

Oh, did I get, by the way, yes, the council president seconded.

Did you move it?

I did move it.

So I have a question.

I'll move it again if you care to second just to.

I don't remember.

Amelia would be proud of us if I move it again and then if you can second before you make any questions.

Yeah, might as well move it again.

Might as well.

Go ahead.

So.

So I move to amend Council Bill 1207, as presented in Amendment 2, which was said, and to confirm that I got a second.

Can you second?

Second.

Okay, now your question, please.

My question is, I appreciate that you are highlighting the safety risks that these buildings pose when people, when our firefighters go to put out fires.

And so I understand that you make that more explicit, but why do you remove the language that describes why some of these fires have become more common?

That's a good question.

It is a fact that we've had issues with squatters or basically, as mentioned, individuals going into these buildings and using them for various purposes.

It could be to steal copper wire from the walls.

It could be to have a lab, a drug lab, There's many different things that go into there.

The focus was to basically show, in terms of the building itself, so that was the main focus.

But you're right, a fair point in terms of your question.

So, yeah, it's an excellent point.

And I view, Mr. Chair, you know, you are the true author of this amendment, but I view those two constructs as complementary.

I think they can both exist at the same time.

And I don't see a reason why, like, they both couldn't potentially be in there.

So, and I think we need to be intentional about calling out exactly what's going on.

And that original language in terms of calling out synthetic narcotics and fentanyl and meth and among other things, you know, that is an important aspect of this.

So, I mean, What are your thoughts on modifying this a little bit to add both of those, to make sure we keep and retain both of those, both your new wording and, you know, the stricken out provisions in subsection D?

I was just asking the question.

I'll leave this up to you, too.

Okay.

Any additional...

Thank you, Vice Chair.

And, you know, based on the point made by Council President and yourself as Vice Chair, contrary...

Chair Kettle, I was just going to say, we do have, we are anticipating additional

Amendments to possibly come at full council.

So if you are interested in tweaking this amendment or further modifying it, that's always an option to bring a an altered version of this amendment forward at full council.

Is another approach perhaps, and I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get in there.

Is another approach also to approve this amendment and then tweak it thusly so that we don't lose momentum on this?

I'll let central staff.

Is that what you were suggesting?

We could do either.

It's at your discretion, Chair.

We could move forward with Amendment 2 as written now and then add an additional amendment addressing the issues that others are describing, or we could hold this amendment for full council and get it to address all of the issues that you want.

Can a motion be made to amend this current amendment, Amendment 2?

Mr. Chair, if I may, I propose, I love your clarification language and the interest of moving this along.

You know, I propose that we vote on the original or the amended language we have before us today, since it sounds like there are already going to be amendments.

you know, like potential other amendments later.

In the interest of moving this along at your discretion, I mean, I'm personally supportive of this, as is right now, and then we can potentially tweak later.

And, Council President, if we approve this amendment and then we can...

That is a good idea.

I'm fine with that course of action.

Okay.

Will the clerk please call the roll on adoption of Amendment 2?

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Council Member Moore.

Aye.

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

Aye.

Chair Kettle.

Aye.

Chair, there are five yes votes and zero no votes.

Thank you.

Now that we have a final amended council bill, I move that the committee recommend passage of council bill 12077 as amendment.

Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to pass council bill as amended.

Are there any further comments?

Council President.

Thank you again for bringing this forward, Chair, and also co-sponsor Morales here.

I do know that I just want to note for those who didn't tune into last committee meeting discussion about this, there was a robust discussion about the need for taking this issue to the next step beyond the vacant building monitoring.

program to address not just the buildings and the impacts to the neighboring community, but also to the safety of our firefighters.

So thank you again.

Thank you very much, Council President.

And I should add to, and this is the focus is public safety, but I do appreciate the fact that our co-sponsor, Council Member Morales, is also the chair of the Land Use Committee.

because I think that also provides a, you know, an added piece to this because basically in the issue of vacant buildings, the Land Use Committee and the Public Safety Committee need to work together because these issues kind of highlighted in the council memo, you know, show that we do need to work together because, you know, these do become a blight in addition to being a public safety threat and we need to work together in terms of making sure that our communities are whole and moving forward.

So thank you.

Any additional comments?

Mr. Chair?

Yes, Vice Chair.

Would now be the floor?

Yes, go ahead.

Okay, okay.

No, I strongly support this current version of the bill as amended currently.

And yeah, I think we need to keep this moving along.

But I will just share that I am sponsoring another amendment.

in regards to some specific concerns raised by some of my constituents in pioneer square which is just basically intended to clarify the applicability of the statute to historic buildings in our city and you know colleagues you may recall at this very committee meeting i think during one of the first committee meetings when this was being introduced, we had public comment from a specific member, one of my constituents from Pioneer Square, and raising their...

you know like that that they would like to see this amended to reflect that feedback and so i i do have an amendment and i'm finalizing it right now and i'm working with central staff to do exactly that that does exactly that more specifically it clarifies that the eight historic preservation districts and the role of the respective historic boards um you know in the issue again finalizing that review process right now uh i've i've socialized the language directly with the the constituents that raised this issue and they're fine with it.

I will make sure you all see a copy of this as well.

But I don't think this is something that pairs back our ability to act on this.

I think instead it just clarifies the applicability to, again, historic buildings.

But I strongly support the current version of the bill, but I do just want to share that right now.

Vice Chair, I appreciate that.

Yes, I'm well aware of it, and thank you for that.

And I do, it's good governance.

It's highlighting the role of public comment, but it's also, you know, the point of good governance of bringing in all stakeholders, and the Pioneer Square community is very important.

Also, those communities that, you know, that have a historical building.

Yes, that need to be part of the, you know, the decision-making process, but at the end of the day, of course, THE SAFETY OF OUR FIREFIGHTERS, THE SAFETY OF OUR COMMUNITY IS KEY.

ANY OTHER COMMENTS?

NO OTHER COMMENTS.

WILL THE CLERK PLEASE CALL THE ROLL ON THE PASSAGE OF COUNCIL BILL 120777 AS AMENDED.

COUNCIL MEMBER HALLINGSWORTH.

AYE.

COUNCIL MEMBER MOORE.

AYE.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT NELSON.

AYE.

COUNCIL MEMBER SACA.

AYE.

CHAIR KETTLE.

AYE.

Chair, there are five yes votes and zero no votes.

Okay, the motion carries and the committee recommendation that council pass council bill 12077 as amended will be sent to the full city council.

Thank you very much.

And thank you for joining us, Council Member Morales.

We'll now move on to our next item of business.

Will the clerk please read item seven into the record?

An ordinance relating to the surveillance technology implementation, authorizing the approval of uses and accepting the 2023 updated surveillance impact report and the 2023 executive overview for the Seattle Police Department's use of automated license plate reader technology.

Briefing and discussion with Captain Britt, Seattle Police Department, and Tommaso Johnson, central staff.

Before moving on, I do want to thank Fire Chief Scoggin and his team for joining us today.

Thank you very much, and I appreciate your support on this topic.

Very much appreciated.

Also, thank you, Mr. Johnson, for joining us again, along with, I believe, above me on the screen is Captain Britt.

Please go ahead and present.

Thank you.

Good morning, all.

Captain Jim Britt with Seattle Police Department.

Thank you for having me, and I apologize for not being able to attend in person.

I'm in Dallas getting prepared for our FIFA World Cup work, and I appreciate taking the opportunity here.

I understand there's a PowerPoint.

Is that going to be shared, or does somebody else have that prepared?

I'm happy to share it, but we only have the PDF version, so if you're able to do that, Captain Britt.

Let me see if I can.

I apologize.

That was not on my list of what I was expecting to do this morning, so my apologies.

I'm also happy to bring it up.

If you wouldn't mind, that'd be great.

I'm working a little remote here.

There we go.

Thank you.

As you know, there have been 28 surveillance impact reports approved by the City Council as we've worked through this process.

Many of them associated with, well, all of them associated with existing technologies, and a couple of them associated with updates to those existing technologies, as is the one that you will hear this morning.

Seattle Municipal Code 1418 requires Council approval by ordinance of a material update to an SIR.

What we're talking about today was considered a material update as determined by the CTO and the Privacy Office at Seattle IT.

The update does not require material updates to go through the same process as the initial SIR, rather just making sure that they are in fact approved as we work through the process.

Next slide, please.

What is a LPR technology much of this was approved prior to the Council that currently seats.

Approving it so just a quick overview automated license plate readers are a combination of the software and hardware used for capturing and monitoring images of license plates in 2021 the Seattle City Council passed the ordinance proving the use of a LPR technology in 11 SPD vehicles.

We use these technologies at Seattle PD in the pursuit of maintaining public safety and enforcing applicable laws related to stolen vehicles, parking enforcement, amber and silver alerts, and other active investigations.

Next slide, please.

How we use it is very important.

It's one of the most critical pieces.

The map on the right is a heat map of the locations of motor vehicle thefts, not recoveries, which is an important distinction here.

AOPR is used in active investigations to find missing persons and recover lost or stolen vehicles.

Software which sees the license plate as part of the view and I see Nick is joining us, which is great.

Thank you.

Software deciphers the plate and compares that number to a list of license plates associated with open reported crimes and missing persons.

If a match is found, the officer must verify the plate and its accuracy and confirm with dispatch before any action is taken.

Each time an officer logs into the LPR or contacts dispatch, an auditable record is created.

Now as for the expansion on the next slide here, expanding this capacity helps address persistent public safety issues and allows SPD to better address the growing vehicle theft problem.

Motor vehicle thefts have increased dramatically, 33% from 22 to 23, from 6,934 vehicles to 9,189.

Expansion to all of our existing patrol vehicle dash cams would occur quickly and cost $280,000 per year beginning in 2024. One of the critical components of this upgrade as well is just in the advances in this hardware that is being used.

In the current designs of our LPR vehicles, it is a separate installation of additional cameras mounted to the light bars of the patrol vehicles.

A rather expensive, ungainly, and uh cost ineffective process which is why we were limited to 11 vehicles with advances in technology and the different capabilities we have already upgraded our fleet's hardware earner in the process of wrapping it up from axon's fleet 2 in-car video system to axon's fleet 3 in-car video system which is an upgraded hardware simply for the icv system However, as a part of that process, one of the availabilities in that system is a software capability that allows us to turn those cameras into license plate readers as well.

So rather than requiring additional hardware be installed in the vehicles, it utilizes existing equipment.

Next slide, please.

So we just talked about this a little bit.

We'll be expanding from 11 vehicles with specific equipment in it to all SPD vehicles that are already equipped with in car video systems.

ALPR functionality is enabled as a component of that system.

All sworn SPD officers will be trained in the use of the ALPR system inside their in-car video.

And the back office system through which the ALPR camera data is interpreted and ALPR is administered will shift from the company that currently provides that, Neology PIPS, to the expanded Axon fleet platform.

Next slide, please.

What will not change?

No changes will be made to the data retention.

All data collected by the LPR system images, computer interpreted license plate numbers, date, time and GPS locations are all stored and retained.

For 90 days after 90 days, all data collected by the LPR system is automatically deleted unless it has been flagged as serving an investigative purpose, in which case it is included in investigations file and stored as as per all the digital evidence policies that currently exist.

Next slide, please.

And I welcome any questions that anybody may have.

I know we went through that rather quickly.

I welcome any questions about ALPR in general or this material upgrade.

Thank you, Captain Britt.

Mr. Johnson, first I'd like to add we have another person join us here at the table, Mr. Szachowski.

Correct, yes.

Okay.

And please introduce yourself.

Good morning, Nick Szachowski.

I am a project manager at Seattle Police Department.

Okay, so we have two members of the Seattle PD, Captain Brent and Mr. Zachowski.

Captain Brent, I take it by that, that was pretty close on my pronunciation.

You did remarkably well, sir.

Okay.

Are there any questions?

I see one above me, a hand, I believe, with Council President.

Vice Chair Saka had his hand up first, and then I'll go if you please.

I yield to you, Madam Council President.

Okay, could you please go back to slide five?

I'd also like to note that in addition to the table here on the dais, we have Council Member Rivera join us.

Thank you very much for joining us this morning.

So thank you.

I was struck by the second bullet point here.

where it says motor vehicle theft has increased citywide by 33% from 2022 to 2023, from 6,000 to 9,000 rounding up or rounding down incidents.

And that's an incredible increase.

And so my first question is, and you can tell me this later, is have you identified the brands of those, the makes and models of those cars?

Because I know that there was council action to, you know, address the fact that the anti-theft technology in KIAs was missing, et cetera.

That's a different story.

But that's one question.

But I also appreciate that on the previous page on slide, let's see, three, you do mention why you use this technology, silver alerts, parking enforcement, stolen vehicles.

As the chair of economic development and now governance accountability and economic development, I I want to highlight that stolen cars are also used in small business thefts, smash and grabs, et cetera.

And this is one of the things that keeps me up at night is the fact that cars have become an accessory to other crimes.

And so will the adoption or the expansion of the use of this also aid in reducing those downstream crimes that stolen cars are used for.

Yes, ma'am.

It will in the fact that it allows us to identify stolen vehicles that we would otherwise not identify and be able to take action on them prior to them being able to be used in additional crimes that they have not already been used for.

The expansion of this will make it so that every patrol car is actively looking for stolen vehicles and vehicles wanted in crimes versus just the 11 vehicles that are scattered throughout the precincts.

And so officers on routine patrol or in route to other calls will receive alerts as they drive along i have been demoing this uh this technology in my uh assigned vehicle for the better part of about two years now uh and while i am not a patrol officer out on routine patrol in those two years i myself have recovered uh about 24 stolen vehicles just myself and that includes driving to and from work uh heading out to grab lunch or heading out to any other meetings so this will greatly expand our ability to identify and intervene on stolen vehicles as for the makes and models we can certainly get that breakdown for you i'm hesitant to uh pin the majority of that on hyundai's and kia's without the data in front of me but that is certainly an aspect

Thank you very much.

Councilmember, if I may, I do have a list of the top 10 stolen vehicles.

We'll send you that list, but the top five, Hyundai, Kia, Honda, Ford, Toyota, with the first one being the highest.

Thank you.

That'll help us track whether or not the actions taken by council previously are having the intended outcomes, or it'll be a data point that could help.

with previous efforts.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Vice Chair Saka.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for this overview presentation.

I think overall this sounds like a great tool and system needed to help us address a number of challenges across the city, and so I do think we need to have a thoughtful deployment and implementation as well and understand what this technology does and in some cases what it doesn't do.

And so that's what my questions right now are designed to address.

So first off, this is an important tool and it's a piece of technology and technology is imperfect.

What are the false positives and false negative rates of this technology?

Without giving you direct numbers, sir, I can tell you that they have dramatically improved over time.

That being said, one of the key factors in LPR usage is that officers are trained to double check that the image taken of the license plate matches the interpretation that the computer says, and it's displayed, all this information is displayed for the officer.

Here's the photo that was taken of the license plate.

Here's what we read about it.

And here's the information that's coming back from the computer saying that it's either involved in a crime or stolen.

The technology has not yet advanced to the point where it can distinguish between different states.

So it is only reading the characters on the license plate itself.

That's a critical piece in the part where officers have to make sure that they are actually validating what the computer is telling them.

If 123 ABC out of Washington state is stolen and I drive by 123 ABC out of Texas, the computer is going to alert and say, hey, you may have just driven by a stolen car, but I am trained to look and make sure that number one, it's reading 123 ABC and number two, it's reading out of the correct state.

So that that that human in the loop aspect is critically important to that.

We can try and get you stats from the vendor, but we don't have those direct stats right now on false positives.

Thank you.

I'd be curious if you wouldn't mind sharing those with my office.

That would be greatly appreciated.

And and My sense is maybe other folks on this committee might be interested in that.

I see Council Member Rivera next to me shaking her head yes in the affirmative.

But that would be good information to sort of better understand.

And it sounds like there's a gap in terms of a technological gap in terms of not being able to discern between states.

It can read the raw number or the raw tag information, but not discern the states currently.

Is that because that is a...

Is that a technological innovation or discrepancy just because of discrepancy in the broader technology?

Or is that because whatever package that the city has purchased as part of this, we don't have the enhanced version that does have the capability?

Or is that just a capability that doesn't exist today?

The technology simply isn't there yet, sir.

Washington state alone has dozens of different state license plate permutations that can be created and everything from park support to national law enforcement memorial to square dancing to the various different license plates available in Washington state alone make it very difficult to distinguish between that and then add on the other 49 states that we deal with as well as our British Columbia friends and and those to the north in Canada and other international plates.

And so the technology simply isn't quite there yet.

There's a lot of work being done in the world of artificial intelligence, but every time a state adds a new design for a license plate, that has to be updated.

So right now the technology is confidently functioning in that it was reading the characters of the plate.

They are still working on the confidence to distinguish between states.

All right, thank you.

And my other question just relates to more use cases and scenarios.

And I will first reference a very, what I found to be a very insightful article from the New York Times about a month ago April 19th, I think, was the exact date, but it talked about expired license plates, temporary tags.

I think the headline, the article name was, Fake Tags Add to Real Chaos on American Roads.

And it talked about how cities, big cities across the country are cracking down on fake tags, expired tags, because they are, you know, posing significant public safety challenges.

stolen cars amongst other things, crash and grabs, it's getting out of hand.

And so I found that article to be a very thought provoking article and I encourage all leaders within SPD to read that article if you haven't already.

And colleagues, I'd be happy to share it with you, just so if you haven't already seen it.

It's a really interesting article.

So without having, Captain, without necessarily having you having had the benefit of reading that article, just based off what you're hearing now from my kind of quick summary and recap, How does this technology address that gap, the challenge or the problem, really, the challenge with expired tags, counterfeit tags, that kind of thing, and the related problems that they pose to our public safety situation here in Seattle?

So the expired tags piece is probably the easiest part to address.

the system can be set up to read any list of data and information the challenge with expired tags is that the state would have to provide us an ongoing updated list of all expired license plates within washington state and that would have to be upgraded updated every single day just as the hot sheet is and that's doable but it's a body of work that the state would have to take on And then we would have to create an alert within the system that alerts us when an expired license plate has been viewed.

So that's certainly doable within the technology, but it would require some cooperation from the state to address that particular issue.

As for counterfeit tags, unless we have it entered into a system, it's not going to alert us.

The way the system works is really just reading off of an Excel spreadsheet.

The computer and the camera reads the license plate, interprets it as 123 ABC, and then it compares that data to the list, the Excel spreadsheet that it has.

If 123 ABC is anywhere on that list, it then determines for what reason it is on that list, be it an expired tab or wanted in a murder or a stolen vehicle, and then it alerts the operator of the vehicle about that license plate that it recently passed.

Now, that alert happens within about a half a second.

It's an incredibly quick computation process, but it's because it really is just doing optical recognition of characters and then comparing it to an existing data set.

Thank you, Captain.

And it sounds like there are a number of dependencies, including on the state, that potentially impact our ability as a city to address some of these underlying concerns.

Dependencies or not, I think that we have an implementation, like a specific challenge with that issue in Seattle, and I would encourage SPD and the executive to think about what we could do short of, you know, some of these relying solely on the good grace and goodwill of others to act, including the state.

I'm going to be personally thinking about that from a legislative standpoint, but...

Let us all come together and think about what we can do to address some of those concerns here in Seattle.

So thank you.

Okay, thank you, Vice Chair.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

Thank you, Chair Kettle.

Thank you, Captain Britt and SPD for this.

I just had a couple questions.

The first one is on slide four, I think it is.

Is that, and I might have missed this, is that on slide four, is that where it says motor vehicle theft locations?

Is that where the theft is taking place or where the vehicle is recovered?

That is the location of the theft itself.

Okay, got it.

Thank you.

No, that's really good to know.

And then when I was at 911 and they had, at the time, the caller was an officer and he had identified a vehicle that had been stolen.

And I can only imagine how much with all the police vehicles having this software, how many calls 911 would be absorbing.

Is that, has that been identified to say like, hey, this might, you know, do we need a dedicated person at 911 to take all these calls or would it happen more often than we think?

No, ma'am.

If an officer operating our motor vehicles, our patrol vehicles out on the street gets an alert, there should be no need for them to engage with 9-1-1.

They would activate via radio or over the computer to log themselves to a recovery.

My apologies.

Yes, not 9-1-1.

I'm sorry.

Got it.

But the volume would potentially...

increase with um like vehicle um the identifying these vehicles as you know you're just driving i can only imagine the amount of hits that are going to happen on an officer's vehicle just driving through neighborhoods because of the software yes ma'am yeah okay no that was so the we're working on plans i'm sorry i don't mean to interrupt no no you're good go ahead captain brit you're good

We are working on plans to with the, well, we actually have them in our policy to address how officers will manage these.

One of the big concerns we had was what does an officer do with an alert they received while in route to a higher priority call?

So we don't want an officer to drop off of an in progress call to go handle a recovery of a stolen vehicle parked on the side of the road.

So what we are working on is a policy that would have officers either handle the call or broadcast it so that dispatch can create a call that the officers can then return to at a later date to either recover the vehicle or if it was rolling at the time it was seen to do an area check to try and locate the vehicle.

So we're working right now to address that.

And I do believe that over time, the volume will in fact drop.

But 911, our dispatchers and our friends on the other end of the radio are prepared to handle this.

They're incredibly professional.

They know what they're doing, that's for sure.

No, absolutely.

No, thank you for that.

I'm incredibly encouraged by this software, just echoing what Council President Nelson had mentioned about a lot of the smash and grabs and vehicles used in different activities in our city with stolen vehicles and how challenging that is.

I can only imagine for officers and just community and people for these vehicles to be stolen.

And then they're committed in a crime, a smash and grab in a storefront or robbery or different things.

And hopefully this will help.

So thank you for bringing this up and thanks for answering my questions.

Thank you, Captain Britt.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Council Member Moore.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Captain.

I wanted to move to slide seven.

I'm interested in retention issues relating to this data.

So, I guess my first question is, currently my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, is that this data is currently housed on site in SPD.

You are the receptacle of the data, is that correct?

Nick, can you address that?

I apologize.

Yes, Council Member Moore.

With the current system, it is stored on premise here on servers in the city of Seattle.

The new system that we're discussing today would be cloud-based.

Okay, so if we go to a citywide system and all patrol cars, then you're going to utilize a third-party vendor?

That is correct, yes.

Okay, and that right now is Axion?

It's Axon, yes, and they use Microsoft Azure Cloud Storage.

And do you know if they will be, I know that some of these third-party vendors have a community edition feature.

Do you know if they will be, if they offer a community edition feature?

They do have a community dashboard feature that is available that will put up certain statistics about the program and so forth on a public website if we so choose to use it.

Okay, so as I understand it, that means that other groups such as neighborhood surveillance groups, businesses and corporations and third parties can offer up their surveillance data to law enforcement?

That is the feature that some of these vendors provide.

It is not a feature that we are onboarding with this particular LPR system.

You'll be hearing in later presentations related to the real-time crime center about opportunities for outside vendors to share private businesses and private residences to share information with us electronically, but not in relation to LPR data.

Okay, thank you.

And then my next question relates to the 90-day retention period.

So, and there have been a lot of questions about why that 90-day period, and I note the number of other states actually have 48 hours, seven days, a very short period.

And because of the public records concerns around the retention, the lengthy retention period, I'm wondering why you're why we are using the 90 days and not looking at a shorter period.

We evaluated the potential for a shorter period and it was discussed that both from an investigative tool perspective and from an accountability perspective for how it is used.

it was important for us to set that at 90 days.

The information that is housed in the system is locked very securely.

And with the new system, we will be able to audit access to it far more effectively than with our current system.

So we will know when and how that information is used.

But for 90 days was critical for us for not only making sure that investigators have access to the useful information that is in there, but also to make sure that if there are questions about the misuse of data or other information that's in that system, that we would have the 90-day record of that as well.

It's also worth noting that some states have over two years retention rules on their LPR data as well.

Okay, so the retention, it's a voluntary decision that you're making for a 90-day retention period?

There's no state law requirement?

State law sets a maximum, but not a minimum.

I'm sorry, state law sets a maximum.

State law sets a maximum, but not a minimum.

Okay.

So under what is the state law that you're, are you not operating under the state law?

No, no, ma'am.

We, it sets a maximum amount of time that we can hold that data, but it does not set a minimum.

So we are within the maximum amount of time.

So we are in compliance with state law.

Okay, so you have the ability to do a much shorter retention period.

There's no legal limit on you reducing the retention period.

There is no legal limit.

There are operational and accountability concerns with that.

Okay, that was my question.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Kettle.

I'm going to piggyback actually on Council Member Moore's question, which is how did you set the 90 day?

Is it that you've seen thus far that that's the amount of time that you need in order to, you know, some investigations yield results with closer to the 90 day and that's why you're doing 90 days or I guess I'd like.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

And then just in general, I didn't see, and I'm sorry if you spoke about it and I missed it, but it's currently in 11 vehicles.

How well is that doing in the 11 vehicles?

How has this been helpful to you all as you're doing the work, which I imagine is the reason why you'd like to expand it to all vehicles?

So the information available about the effectiveness of our existing system is unfortunately a bit spotty because there is no standard documentation process that allows us to capture that.

Anecdotally, I can tell you that the 11 vehicles we have out are responsible for a great number of recoveries of stolen vehicles as well as vehicles involved in other crimes.

And the information gathered has been critical to detectives trying to locate suspects or identify suspect vehicles.

associated with other crimes.

The expansion of this, we believe, will greatly increase that effectiveness as well.

So can I confirm what I heard?

So you don't have the ability now to track how many vehicles you recovered using the technology in those 11 vehicles currently?

I mean, I know you have data around the vehicles you did recover in general.

Are you saying you can't attach it to the 11?

We can't confirm whether or not the recovery of the vehicle happened by ALPR.

Unfortunately, when the ALPR system was initially rolled out, there was no standard practice about how that was to be documented.

And the system we have in place does not allow us to track that kind of information about whether or not the vehicle was recovered.

The new system will allow us to do that.

Okay, so with the new system, you'll be tracking this information?

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

I understand Council Member Moore has an additional question.

Yeah, sorry.

I just wanted to follow up with the on-site retention.

Is there a reason, what is the reason for moving to a third-party vendor rather than continuing to keep that information in-house?

Well, I think one of the main reasons is the stability of the platform.

The current system, we have 11 vehicles.

We only have nine operating currently.

It's been difficult to keep the fleet up and running of those 11 vehicles.

The same goes for the back end.

It's a server that resides at the city.

There's some stability issues.

It's working with the vendor and our IT department.

It requires management by City IT.

By moving to a third-party storage, that management of that server, of that cloud system, is done by the vendor.

And I think in terms of security, cloud is generally considered to be a...

a more secure environment.

The vendor that we're using has gone through the city IT security review and has done very well and is considered a very proactive with their security efforts and one of the better vendors that we work with in terms of their security practices.

Okay.

It's also worth noting that when we, I'm sorry, ma'am, I apologize.

It's also worth noting that when we were using the old system, cloud-based computing and data storage had not reached the maturity that it's at now.

And also worth noting that Axon, the vendor that we are using, also stores all of our in-car video, all of our body-worn video, and all of our digital evidence in the same platform.

So it's about as secure as we could ever hope for.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you, counsel.

Oh, I have additional question.

I did.

I had one more.

I'm so sorry.

Captain Britt, page seven.

Who has the authority to flag the license plate for investigation?

Is that like a judge or SPD?

Typically, the license plates are entered onto the state hot list.

which is the NCIC and WSIC list of stolen vehicles.

So it would have to be reported stolen to enter onto that list, or it's wanted in relation to a crime and added to the state's WSIC list.

Additionally, we would have the ability to create lists of vehicles.

If we had a vehicle that was wanted, say for a robbery that we hadn't put out on the statewide list yet, we just, all we knew was the vehicle.

We could put the vehicle into our system, but that would be controlled by administrators only.

Got it.

So it could be a state list or an SPD created list that you all have as well.

That's correct.

And all of that would be auditable.

So we would know who did it and how it was done.

Got it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Captain Britt or Mr. Zarkowski or Mr. Johnson, any questions on these if you have to input.

I wanted to ask, We have a situation, for example, in North Queen Anne, there was a stolen vehicle and it was dumped.

You know, North Queen Anne is a quiet part of Queen Anne, quiet part of District 7. You can kind of sometimes forget you're in a major city.

No doubt a reason why the car was dumped there.

But the neighbors quickly realized that it was a stolen vehicle based on how it was presenting.

And they had called in and there was no ability to act on it.

And so they did their own detective.

They just went on social media saying, hey, we have this car here with this license plate and this number, and it just happened to match based on somebody who lost the vehicle by themselves going on to social media and doing it.

And, you know, this highlights a few issues.

One, it highlights, you know, how important, like, our SBD staffing is in order to work these issues because it goes to the, you know, the credibility and the confidence of the community in our police force to work these issues.

And so...

I appreciate what LLPR can do for us.

And kind of going to the question that was asked question earlier is the ability to process.

You know, we are short staffed now.

How will this be impacted in terms of the department's ability to work these issues in terms of, you know, if there is a big increase in volume?

You know, we talked about the increased number of stolen vehicles, but we could have an increase even greater based on, you know, the use of ALPR.

Right now that burden would fall to patrol and the officers to be able to go out and handle the recovery.

The good news here is that we would be logging the locations to go and return and recover those stolons.

As for the one that was on North Queen Anne, I'm not sure why officers weren't able to recover that unless it wasn't yet reported stolen.

But if it was in fact a stolen vehicle, there should be no reason we couldn't go out and recover that vehicle.

The workload is going to be a question, and it's something that SPD will have to shift and adjust to make sure that we can meet the needs.

But the good news is that rather than not knowing where the stolons are, we will know where they are.

We will log their locations, and then as time permits, perhaps in the overlap between shifts or in the evening hours when calls get lower, officers will have the opportunity to return and recover those vehicles and get them back to their owners.

Is there a way, by the way, in listening to your answer, to mark the vehicle so that the neighborhood knows that SBD is aware of it and is working it?

Because that kind of goes to the point where the community feels that these things are being worked and it's not just gone into a vacuum.

Is there a way to say, yes, this vehicle has been determined to be stolen?

It's maybe parking enforcement, partnering parking enforcement.

So the community knows.

that this stolen vehicle is just not sitting here.

It's not just a daily reminder of a crime that's been committed and not been resolved yet.

Is there a way to do that?

We can certainly explore those options.

I think in a perfect world, when the vehicle is determined to be stolen and an officer conducts the recovery, which means they stop and actually process it, that it's either returned to the owner who comes out and gets it from the scene or it's moved to a tow lot for the owner's request.

So when done right, those vehicles are actually moved rather swiftly.

Our staffing doesn't always allow for that, and we can certainly explore alternative options for the marking of vehicles.

But in a best practice world, we would simply recover the vehicle.

Yes, and I understand that, Captain Britt.

And it just kind of goes to, again, to the staffing challenges and decisions need to be made.

But it also goes to the point where, and this is part of our strategic framework, the permissive environment piece.

This kind of adds to the idea that if you see a stolen vehicle, it's just sitting there that, you know...

that we're acting on it.

And, you know, it kind of goes to that point.

I just wanted to highlight that.

You know, tied to the ability to process is the operations piece of this in terms of, like, where would you use it?

And this kind of goes to the data collection point.

And the reason why I ask is, say, it would be great to go to North Queen Anne in this example.

There's other parts of, you know, in Aurora and other areas that you, it would be great.

But maybe we don't necessarily want using ALPR over in District 4 near UW when we have two competing demonstrations going on and people are coming in for those demonstrations.

Is there any restrictions in terms of area of use or circumstances of use?

Like if there's something, you know, like if we have competing demonstrations at the University of Washington, which is obviously a very volatile subject.

Is that something where, you know, we wouldn't necessarily be looking to use ALPR right now to capture these data sets in terms of license plates?

No, sir.

In fact, the deployment fleet-wide of the ALPR technology is actually beneficial and answers a question that was raised by a past city council about the purposeful deployment of ALPR.

With 11 vehicles, we had to decide how many precincts or how many cars went to each precinct and how and when and where they were deployed.

In the case of a fleet-wide ALPR system, as is being proposed here, it's simply that wherever a patrol car with in-car video goes, ALPR goes with them.

So we are simply not making a determination about when and how ALPR is used.

It's just that similar to in-car video, whenever a patrol car is deployed, ICB, body-worn video, and ALPR comes with them.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I mentioned Aurora, and a big challenge that we have on Aurora right now is sex trafficking and, you know, Is this something that we've seen in terms of stolen vehicles?

We've mentioned smash and grabs.

We mentioned a bunch of different theft areas.

But has this been an area, we talk about missing persons, but is this something that could be beneficial in terms of addressing the sad example of sex trafficking on Aurora?

Certainly, sir.

We haven't seen that I know of a direct correlation between the use of stolen vehicles and the promoting of prostitution or the work as sex trafficking.

It's certainly possible to say that there is a connection, but we don't have one documented at this time.

That being said, as patrol cars roll through the Aurora area, they will be identifying or capturing images of vehicle license plates and cataloging them and storing them for the 90 days so when it comes time to conduct investigations that information would be available and very helpful to investigative purposes.

Okay, thank you.

Separately, I noted your point about out-of-state licenses, and it's not really applicable to that.

I appreciate that point.

We do see a lot of out-of-state license plates throughout the city, throughout the district.

For some reason, I see a lot of Texas plates that seem to hang longer than one would expect in terms of, you know, shifting over to Washington State.

That would be very helpful, but I understand the restrictions, the technology restrictions that you noted and why that My last question, well, two questions kind of related, is it kind of goes to the question from the public commenter, and that is, you know, the data, you know, and then the investigative purposes.

What defines an investigative purposes?

Is this a city of Seattle only, or could this be an investigative purpose from an outside jurisdiction that's coming to Seattle for information?

We would typically only use it for internal investigations.

That being said, if we receive a legitimate law enforcement request from a law enforcement partner conducting a legitimate law enforcement investigation, we would help them in any way we could.

Okay, that's a question in terms of what, sadly in today's world, what...

As the caller was noting, what's legitimate in one state is not legitimate in another state, and that's correct.

It needs to be locally legitimate, Sir.

Yeah, state of Washington laws applicable.

Correct, so we would not be using this for out of state investigations into reproductive rights or or immigration customs questions.

OK, thank you, which I know are the two key hot button questions there.

Roger.

I understand.

And the third-party vendor question, you know, they have a suite of products.

Obviously, we're coming in with just ALPR in terms of this.

And, you know, the imagery of a cloud is this just kind of magical thing, but it's actually hardware.

It's, you know, you need, you know, the AC to protect that hardware in terms of these data collects and so forth.

So there's actual pieces to it.

Is that going to be independent, and will there be any restrictions from crops purposings to other Axon programs?

No, the data that resides with that third-party vendor that is generated by Seattle is owned by the city, by Seattle, and cannot be shared with another vendor.

you know, entity, agency, individual that is not part of...

Even within the City of Seattle, like, you know, body-worn camera or any whatever tech that's still City of Seattle, but ALPR will be independent of any other City of Seattle-related program that Axon may have?

Well, I mean, it will be...

Not necessarily.

Yeah, sorry.

Go ahead.

As we're looking to onboard a real-time crime center in the future, the ALPR system could feed information to that.

But again, it would be housed within SPD and subject to the same restrictions as all other secured systems are.

Sorry, Nick, I didn't mean to cut you off there.

No.

Thank you for that.

We need the clarity on that.

So I appreciate your answer.

And my last question is, you know, tied to that is, you know, and this goes to the, you know, the good governance, you know, the accountability, which is really important to this committee.

We could, you know, work with maybe the OIG to have periodic reviews of the system and how it's being used and, and you know, where the, you know, to ensure the data is only being held for 90 days or it's being only used for investigative purposes.

That's something that can clearly be done quite easily, you know, working with the officer inspector general.

Yes, sir.

In fact, they already conduct, as part of the original SIR for ALPR, an annual audit of our usage of and storage of ALPR data and ALPR technology.

The transition from the old program to the new Axon system will actually help us do better at auditing and helping fulfill our obligations to the OIG for their annual audit.

Okay, thank you, Captain Britt.

I think that's a very important point to me, to be made public and understood and something that should be, you know, supported to the best of its ability.

So thank you.

I have no further questions.

Any other questions for Captain Britt?

Mr. Sorry, do I have one?

No.

Okay.

Well, thank you, Captain Britt.

Thank you, Mr. Zarkowski.

And thank you, Mr. Johnson.

If I might, just briefly, once again, Tommaso Johnson, Council Central Staff.

As with the other matter earlier on the agenda, Council, the committee is in receipt of a Central Staff memo.

providing analysis of this proposal in an effort not to duplicate anything that's been said already.

I just wanted to provide a couple points of emphasis regarding the issue of the retention period.

It's my understanding that the retention period in question here of 90 days is In that respect, SPD is following the Washington Secretary of State law enforcement records retention schedule, which is where that 90-day number comes from.

Beyond that, I just wanted to say also in terms of the scope for folks not aware, a full fleet deployment would consist of approximately 270 marked patrol cars and a total of approximately 360 vehicles up from the current number.

For reference, I believe this would represent by quite a bit the largest deployment of this type of technology in Washington state to date.

And as was noted, this process for the material update is slightly abbreviated from a usual surveillance impact report approval process.

So in this case, There was a public comment period on this material update in late 2023. There was not, however, community surveillance work group analysis or corresponding CTO report as those are not required in the material update process.

But the original authorization for the surveillance impact report on this technology in 2021 did include those components.

And there were various, those public comments from the 2023 process are available in the appendices to the surveillance impact report.

Thank you for that, Mr. Johnson.

Council Member Moore.

Thank you, Chair.

Sorry, I didn't realize we were wrapping up.

So I just wanted to be on the record that I appreciate the need for...

amplifying the ability of our law enforcement personnel to provide for public safety.

And I recognize that we are, in our police department, we are very understaffed.

At the same time, I have some very serious concerns about this technology.

And I just want to note that I have received some really helpful email analysis from the Washington People's Privacy, Maya Morales, founder, and then also from another person, CSPS.

And they have raised the issue about, right now, if we are transferring to a third party vendor, We are, that is going, that raises the risk of being able to circumvent the Washington shield laws around outside people from out of state being able to access reproductive and gender affirming care.

And this is a reality that we are already experiencing in Washington state.

We are already looking at Idaho, which has made it a crime to engage in what they call abortion trafficking.

We have seen increased numbers and women trying to access basic fundamental health care in Washington state.

And this council and the state very proactively passed shield laws to make sure that women are entitled to basic health care, which our constitution should guarantee and which our Supreme Court has decided we are not.

First-class citizens, so I'm very very concerned about how do we work?

I know that right now the city SPD does because they are able to maintain this information in-house they have very strict protocols and they are very good about following those protocols and not They are prohibited from complying and cooperating with investigations from out of state.

The problem is that once it gets shifted to a third-party vendor, they are going to be under obligation to respond to a search warrant that will be issued by a court of competent jurisdiction.

And I cannot imagine that they are going to spend their time fighting those search warrants.

So I don't know how we get around the third-party vendor piece, even if we were to contract directly with Axon and say, you know, as a matter of policy, we don't want that information released.

So if somebody could please answer that question to me, how do we keep that vendor from responding to a legitimate request search warrant served on them by a sister jurisdiction, I need to know.

The other significant concern I have about this, and this relates to the retention period of 90 days, which is that we have, we may be able to limit the uses, but we are creating, this is all public record, and this information is all available through a public records request.

Now, we can try to respond in a certain way that doesn't necessarily release that information.

That's not a guarantee, so we are now opening the door to public records requests from people who are potentially, that would place domestic violence victims at risk, that would potentially increase stalking, harassment, people who are being targeted because of their immigration status, their ethnicity, their religious identity, as well as reproductive care.

So I am very uncomfortable voting on this until we've at least addressed the retention issues under the Public Records Act.

I know that there had been some discussion at the state legislature about exempting this information from the Public Records Act, and that would be the ideal solution to the second issue, not to the third-party vendor issue.

But that's down the road, so we would need to look at some other ways to perhaps address this concern.

But I wanted to raise these issues now because they are of profound import to the constitutional rights of our citizens and of all the other people who come to this state to exercise their rights, their basic human rights to care.

Thank you.

Any additional comments?

No.

Oh, Council Member Rivera.

Thank you.

I actually was going to raise something similar to Council Member Moore, which is in general, how do we mitigate for the privacy issues that's raised by this type of technology?

I will preface...

Actually, in the same way Council Member Moore said, you know, in the district that I represent, we have had those car smashing windows of businesses, and they, I understand, are stolen vehicles, as well as some pedestrian safety issues with racing of stolen vehicles up at Sandpoint.

So, I really, this is something that is important to the district that I represent and to me, and finding tools to allow SPD the ability to deal with these very serious public safety concerns At the same time, we have these privacy concerns, which Councilmember Moore articulated and I agree with.

At the end of the day, we want to mitigate for what I call unintended consequences of these, what I think are helpful technologies.

How do we make sure that as we move forward, we are planning for the unintended consequences and putting as much limitations on the ability for others to use this information in ways that SPD is clearly not intending.

I would, you know, like more conversation about that.

So, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Any additional comments?

Well, thank you all for joining us today, and thank you for the presentation on ALPR automatic license plate readers.

Clearly, on one hand, public safety, this is needed for all the reasons that were discussed.

to basically further our public safety posture in our city, to work on those issues related to our strategic framework here on the committee and the council.

And so I really appreciate this, too.

Clearly, as well, the good governance piece, the due diligence piece is going to have to be extremely strong as it relates to the data collection and use.

And so I invite my colleagues to discuss go deep on that side, work with central staff, work with city attorney's office, work with the SBD side as well, primarily through Mr. Johnson, to ensure that all these pieces are addressed and so that we're right-sizing this so that we do accomplish our public safety goals without the unintended consequences that were raised.

You know, in the public piece, too, and it is being noted, Councilmember Moore noted, and I have as well, I have the memo right here from Washington People's Privacy, you know, so we're aware of these documents and the information that's within, and so, of course, we welcome public comment on this, and we will, again, be doing the due diligence, doing the good governance, crossing the T's, dotting the I's on that topic.

All right, well, thank you very much.

I believe that we have reached the end of today's agenda.

And for our committee, early, is there any...

It's important business at our committee, so need the full two hours.

Is there any further business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Hearing and seeing no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.

Thank you very much.

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