New report details how surveillance tech is used in Boston

The city released its first-ever surveillance report, which includes information on cell phone trackers, gunshot detectors, and body-worn cameras.

Boston officials released the city’s first annual surveillance report this month, an overview of the dizzying array of different types of technology the city uses on a regular basis, predominantly in law enforcement efforts.

In 2021, the Boston City Council passed an ordinance designed to provide more transparency regarding the use of this technology. It mandates that various departments, including the Boston Police Department, issue a report each year on how surveillance technology is being used.

Mayor Michelle Wu, who helped formulate the ordinance during her time on the council, said this week that she is “proud” that conversations about surveillance are being had more publicly.

“It took a long time to move it through and get it passed,” she said of the ordinance during an interview on WBUR Monday. “We had many, many years of advocacy from community organizations and residents who had been completely in the dark about what was available, what was being used, and the protections or privacy parameters that might be on any of the technologies.”

The report touches on a wide range of devices, including body-worn cameras, license plate readers, gunshot detection systems, and devices that track the locations of cell phones.

Speaking about body-worn cameras specifically, Wu said that there had been concerns before their widespread implementation that they would make victims of crimes less likely to engage with police if they knew that they would be filmed. It has become clear, she added, that body-worn cameras benefit civilians and law enforcement personnel alike.

“That is now indisputable public record when there is a question of misconduct, of what exactly happened at a situation, or sometimes even wanting to further an investigation on a particular incident that took place,” Wu said on WBUR.

The BPD received 6,518 requests for body camera footage from prosecutors in 2023, according to the report. There were no citizen complaints about the technology, but officials identified 11 potential violations of body camera policy while investigating citizen complaints unrelated to the technology. These incidents were related to officers activating their cameras. Wu spoke about the importance of ensuring the cameras are used properly. Almost 1,000 BPD officers were randomly selected for body-worn camera review during Fiscal Year 2023. The audit found that 90% were in compliance with department rules, while 10% were found to have “deficiencies” like not recording at all, stopping a recording early, or not properly uploading footage after an incident.

In a memo released with the report, BPD officials noted that residents could be worried about how surveillance technology is being used.

“We acknowledge the worry and the concern that exists around technology and the idea of ‘surveillance.’ To be clear, the Department does not use technology for any general ‘surveillance’ purposes. Rather, technology is just one tool that is employed strictly to fulfill our public safety mission, for legitimate law enforcement purposes, and subject to judicial oversight,” officials wrote.

In that memo, the BPD included a number of statistics about changes between 2022 and 2023: violent crime decreased 5%, the number of total shooting victims decreased by 20%, citywide arrests increased 8%, and the number of firearms recovered decreased by 11%.

Officials listed 44 specific incidents in the memo as a “representative sample” of times where surveillance technology played a critical role in helping police.

The BPD maintains a network of about 1,300 cameras throughout the city. There are an additional 400 operated by the city and the Department of Transportation. Mounted on places like telephone poles and street signs, these cameras relay a livestream of video and record what goes on nearby. They do not have facial recognition technology and do not pick up any audio. These cameras are a “tremendous tool,” officials wrote, and some residents and businesses are requesting more cameras in their neighborhoods.

Another piece of notable technology used by police are cell-site simulators. These are used either after a warrant is obtained or “in exigent circumstances,” according to the report. They mimic traditional cell towers to identify mobile devices by unique numbers assigned to them. They only provide investigators with the general direction of a cell phone and cannot collect data from the phones like contact lists or text messages.

In May, prominent lawmakers signed a letter calling into question the accuracy of ShotSpotter technology, saying that the gunshot detection system may violate civil rights. ShotSpotter is used in many Massachusetts cities, including Boston. The legislators were concerned that the system can have a high error rate and could lead to “over-deployment” in communities with many people of color. SoundThinking, the company behind the system, later said the officials used “cherry-picked data” and “recycled falsehoods” when asking for ShotSpotter to be subject to a federal investigation.

“This state-of-the-art program and enhanced response time better enables the Department to identify hotspots, recover evidence, and locate both victims and people in possession of guns,” BPD officials wrote in the report. They included extensive information on how it works and specific incidents where it helped police respond to shootings quickly and effectively.

Kade Crockford, director of the ACLU of Massachusetts Technology for Liberty Project, recently told The Boston Globe that the report was a “good start” but that a lot of additional information should be made available to the public. For example, Crockford said that school officials should make it clear where security cameras are located in school buildings and if they infringe on the civil rights of marginalized groups.

“The schools are sensitive places,” Crockford told the Globe. “Students and their parents have a lot of privacy interests to be concerned about.”