Surveillance Study Committee - Sep 20th, 2018

Attending: Julie Flaherty, Christina Hildebidle, David Good, John Gersh, Mark Streitfeld, Steve Revilak.

Future Meetings. We will meet on Thu Oct 18th and Tue Oct 30th. There will be no meeting on Oct 4th. We'll keep the Nov 29th meeting, and use a doodle poll to choose additional meeting dates in November.

Approval of Minutes. Sep 6th minutes were amended and approved.

Wayne State University Policy. The committee discussed Wayne State University's video surveillance policy. Our first question was "do we want to recommend a video surveillance policy, or something broader"? For example, should we address things like facial recognition software, or capture of device information via the town's wireless networks.

There seemed to be general agreement that our policy should address collection, retention, sharing, and access. Perhaps it could include a statement of rights.

David Good felt that state laws regarding data retention should prevail over town laws, where applicable.

Christina Hildebidle liked the introduction, purpose, and scope sections. She appreciated that the policy specified an approval process for new equipment. The Wayne State Policy clearly spells out who has authority in this area, and there are requirements for maintaining a camera inventory. The town's policies around release of video footage would likely be different, particularly where the footage is subject to public record request.

Julie Flaherty felt the policy was clear and to the point. She believed the policy was an appropriate starting point for our group.

John Gersh agreed that the policy is short, but it still covers a lot of different points. He'd like to maximize the amount of civil liberties given.

Mark Streitfeld agreed that the policy was a suitable starting point, despite the fact that it's limited to video.

Christina Hildebidle offered to put a copy of the policy into a google doc, so that committee members can add comments, suggestions, and ideas about what they'd like to change.

School and Police Department Policies. Julie Flaherty reports that the police department doesn't have a dedicated surveillance policy, though the topic appears in numerous policy documents.

David Good reports that the School District does not have a video surveillance policy. They have signs ("video surveillance in use", or similar), and policies about picture taking. There's no policy that deals with video.