Friends, former colleagues, & fellow Davisites,
A little over two years ago, during my last stint as Chair of the Police Accountability Commission, I initiated a review of facial recognition technology and its compatibility with Davis policing. This followed a shocking report from New Orleans on the discriminatory use of facial recognition technology by their police department. A look at how this technology was used in New Orleans and how it was used in policing across the world revealed that this technology was horribly discriminatory for people with darker skin tones, women, and gender non-conforming individuals. From my perspective such a technology was incompatible with the values of Davis and incompatible with Davis’ model of policing.
So I, in collaboration with my then commission colleague, Commissioner Cecilia Escamillia-Greenwald, proposed an ordinance banning the use of facial recognition technology in Davis policing until a time when/if the technology was no longer discriminatory. Cities like San Francisco, Boston, Portland OR, & Portland ME had already taken similar steps to preemptively ban this technology for policing in their communities. The commission spent several months discussing this proposal, even soliciting the support of the same civil liberties advocates that helped write our city’s Surveillance Technology Ordinance, a group called Secure Justice. I’m disappointed to say that in this post-merger climate where city leadership seems less interested in commission input, the City Council never even scheduled the draft ordinance for a discussion. I continue to see this as a clear indication that there is no longer a council majority that respects the volunteer service of the commissioners they themselves appointed.
That takes us to today, where by now many of you will have seen reports of ICE procuring up to $20 million worth of a technology called G.L.O.V.E. or Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter. Set aside, if you can, the horrifying implications of ICE utilizing this technology that can incapacitate someone with the touch of a button, consider this in the context of local beat policing. Already in Omaha Nebraska their local police department is responding to concerns about why they have had this technology deployed for years with school resource officers. In West Sacramento, just a few miles down the road, a local candidate is campaigning on returning school resource officers to River City, bringing that concerning scenario closer to home for folks in Davis.
Commissioners, in a rational society we don’t have to wait for a crisis to take action. We don’t have to wait until the town is surrounded by flames to invest in firefighters. We don’t have to wait until someone in our community is tragically injured by an officer using this technology for us to take protective action. I urge you to take a look at this. Take a look at how this technology operates in the real world, and if it isn’t compatible with Davis then I urge you to act in your responsibility to recommend a ban of it for Davis policing.
Yours in solidarity,
Dillan Horton
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