San Diego Police Department has been promoting the use of Smart Streetlights and Automated License Plate Recognition technologies to conduct investigations and enhance police response and public safety.

The new technologies are proposed to be included in the City’s Surveillance Ordinance, which requires City Council approval of technology used to monitor and identify individuals.

If Smart Streetlight and ALP Recognition technologies are ultimately adopted by the City, annual reports outlining their intended use will be required. A newly created privacy advisory board will also have to sign off on and monitor police use of the new technologies.

Capt. Jeff Jordon, of SDPD Chief’s Office/legislative affairs and special projects, has been giving extended public presentations explaining the need for and advocating police use of, the new Smart Streetlights and ALP Recognition technologies.

“We’re having meetings to solicit public feedback and comments that will get translated into a community impact report to be presented to what is now known as a Privacy Advisory Board,” said Jordon. “The PAB will be tasked with listening to this information and saying this is a good idea – or reject it – in their recommendations to the City Council.”

The Smart Streetlights project began as a cost-saving effort by the City to replace high-energy-use streetlights with more efficient LED lights. Many of the 3,200 smart streetlights installed in public spaces citywide were also equipped with sensors used to generate processed data including pedestrian and vehicle movement, along with parking activity as well as standard environmental measures of temperature, pressure, and humidity.

The use of data from Smart Streetlights began in 2018. But that practice was suspended after two years of use in 2020, due to legal concerns that their implementation could infringe on privacy rights.

“From the police department’s standpoint, Smart Streetlights and ALP Recognition technologies are both really powerful tools,” said Jordon adding, “But they raised all kinds of concerns because no policies and procedures had been immediately developed for their use.”

Jordon noted SDPD has 125 beats covering 350 square miles. He said police have studied where 500 Smart Streetlight cameras could best be deployed to “have the greatest immediate impact on crime.”

During the two years when Smart Streetlight data was allowed to be used by police, Jordon noted there were clear-cut instances where the review of the data solved crimes. He gave one instance where a murder Downtown recorded by a Smart Streetlight camera confirmed that a man charged with murder in a shooting had actually been acting in self-defense.

Regarding ALP readers, Jordon noted they “take a snapshot of license plates that tells us the make and model of the car.” But he added ALP readers “don’t tell us who the driver or the registered owner is or who the passengers are. In short, it doesn’t give us a person’s identifying information.”

Jordon said ALP readers have also proven to be useful. “There has been a lot of benefit to us using that data in identifying suspects,” he said adding ALP Recognition has also been used in databases searching for stolen vehicles or in Amber Alerts to search for missing or kidnapped children.

The use of the new Smart Streetlight and ALP Recognition technologies could also help out with SDPD’s ongoing personnel shortage. “We have roughly 1,850 officers in the City right now,” Jordon noted. “We’re the second lowest-staffed department, behind only San Jose, for a city of more than 500,000 people.”