Anchorage Assembly returns Wednesday to unfinished police surveillance rules

The Anchorage Assembly will try again Wednesday to finish rules for the police department's surveillance network, two weeks after it ran out of time partway through amending them.

The ordinance would write limits into city code for the Anchorage Police Department's license plate readers and its Real-Time Crime Center, which can pull together live camera feeds and other data. Those rules are now department policy, which the police chief can change without a vote.

Members are working from Mayor Suzanne LaFrance's version, which keeps most details in police policy and adds reporting and a complaint process. On Oct. 20, they voted to require a court-issued warrant before police share data in some cases, and made it easier for the Assembly to suspend a surveillance tool. Still pending is a proposal to make police delete most data within 14 days.

The ACLU of Alaska, in an Oct. 20 letter, asked the Assembly to reject two changes. One would narrow what counts as surveillance technology to tools using AI and machine learning. The other would give the city 45 days to fix an alleged violation before anyone could sue, which the ACLU says would undercut a right to sue the Assembly created in 2023.

Seven residents also sent written testimony before the Oct. 20 meeting, most urging the Assembly to block or sharply limit plate readers. "A plate scan is a dot. A month of plate scans is a diary," wrote Joshua Edwards, citing a recent federal ruling against a warrantless search of stored plate records.

The public hearing closed in September. Edwards asked the Assembly to reopen testimony before it votes.