By Joe Creason

On Thursday, February 4, the Somerville City Council held its Legislative Matters Committee meeting.  The primary focus of the meeting was to discuss specific provisions within a surveillance technology ordinance passed by the City Council last year. The ordinance, which was drafted to create a policy around the acquisition and use of surveillance technology by various city departments, had revisions added by councilors looking to ensure more oversight of the city’s security.

The Surveillance Use Policy outlines a series of approved purposes where the use of technology, such as cameras and other sophisticated data collection tools, is appropriate. City departments may use surveillance technology in a variety of situations including identifying and preventing threats to persons and property, identifying and prosecuting criminal offenders, providing information to emergency personnel, documenting and improving performance of city employees, preventing waste, fraud, and abuse of city resources, analyzing and managing service delivery, gathering evidence on violations of the law and more.

In order for a city department to get approved for the use of surveillance technology in a way that is not already authorized in the Surveillance Use Policy, they must first be approved by the mayor and then their request for use is to be submitted to the City Council for approval.

“This language was added to clarify the bigger picture of this process and reiterate that this is in fact the procedure these documents go through,” Legislative Liaison Lauren Racaniello said.

An annual service report describing all existing surveillance equipment, data, and actions will be submitted to the City Council 12 months after the effective date of the ordinance. Each city Department using surveillance technology will have a compliance officer who is responsible for the oversight of surveillance use and the completion of any documentation outlined in the Surveillance Use Policy. Impact reports will be required for each proposed acquisition or use of surveillance technology.