Ripple chairman and co-founder Chris Larsen funded more than 1,000 of San Francisco’s security cameras for a decade. Last week, the city gave SFPD the ability to monitor the feeds in real time.

SFPD can now access private surveillance networks during life-threatening emergencies, large events, and criminal investigations (including misdemeanors).

• The decision came with heavy opposition from privacy and civil rights groups, Protocol’s Issie Lapowsky reports. “The fact that there is a very vast private camera surveillance network infrastructure already in place does make the passage of this policy very concerning,” said Jennifer Jones, staff attorney for the ACLU of Northern California.
• Larsen, who isn’t monitoring the cameras, has reportedly spent around $4 million since 2012. Neighborhood coalitions known as community benefit districts, which give SFPD the greenlight for access, are the ones monitoring.

But opponents are worried about around-the-clock monitoring and fear it would be harmful to marginalized groups.

• New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced last week that the city plans to install cameras in all subway cars in a bid to stop crime, a proposal that stoked anger from privacy groups.

And other cities could start this type of surveillance, too. Cities only briefly attempted to curb police power in 2020 when racial justice protests were happening across the country, but since then, police use of surveillance technology has only increased. “As cities deal with this rise in crime they're going through, they're all going to be looking to each other to see what's working — or at least what's new,” Issie told me. “Even if there's no evidence it's working.”

—Nat Rubio-Licht