SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Police Department is using a mobile surveillance system and drones to keep an eye on crowds at Comic-Con 2024.
Residents generally are familiar with smart streetlights installed across San Diego, as well as the public notification requirements in the city’s surveillance ordinance.
But when it comes to special events like Comic-Con, SDPD typically deploys a mobile surveillance system that does not require public notification. The system is called the Camera Trailer Camera System. It uses portable camera trailers with telescoping cameras deployed above areas where large crowds gather.
“Our concern with them is that this kind of technology be properly used by the police,” said privacy advocate Seth Hall with the TRUST SD Coalition.
“People will be more comfortable with this technology if they can trust it, if we know that there are rules and that somebody is looking over these technologies and making sure that they work,” said Hall.
Trailer surveillance cameras are considered existing technology, so a city-use policy still has not been approved by the city council.
“There does not need to be any notification of the use of these systems because any technology already in use by City departments has a grace period to go through the Surveillance Ordinance process until 2026. The camera systems are currently moving through the approval process under the Surveillance Ordinance; however, they have been stalled due to the lack of meetings of the Privacy Advisory Board since May,” according to a spokesperson for the San Diego Police Department.
SDPD also is using a drone as an eye in the sky for Comic-Con. The drone policy has already been approved by the city council. But the video retention policy is not that clear-cut.
The SDPD spokesperson emailed CBS 8, “Information about retention on the video can be found in the draft use policy on our Technology website: https://www.sandiego.gov/police/data-transparency/technology.”
The website, however, did not specify the exact number of days surveillance video recordings are retained by the police department.
“I think we should care about how long a recording of us wandering around doing our own normal business is retained for,” said Hall.
Near Petco Park, SDPD had a Comic-Con command post set up, where surveillance video can streamed, recorded, or viewed in real time.
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