Anchorage Assembly takes up surveillance rules again as sponsors flag Axon contract data terms

The Anchorage Assembly holds a second work session Wednesday on competing ordinances to govern police surveillance technology. The sponsors' version would explicitly cover metadata, and they say the city's contract with Axon Enterprise shows why.

In a draft memo posted for the Sept. 25 work session, Assembly Vice Chair Daniel Volland of North Anchorage wrote that he found no explicit permission in the $11.8 million contract for Axon to sell or commercially exploit the city's identifiable evidence. But he wrote that other provisions let Axon "retain, analyze, aggregate, transform, and indefinitely store derivatives and metadata generated from Anchorage data." Assembly members Sydney Scout of North Anchorage and Keith McCormick of South Anchorage co-sponsor the version.

Asked by Volland at that work session whether Axon can see license plate reader data, Municipal Attorney Eva Gardner said, "Axon does not have access to that plate data," except possibly when its staff provide tech support.

The contract separates the city's content, including evidence, which the city owns, from "Non-Content Data," usage information Axon may use to "develop, improve, and support current and future Axon products." It also enrolled the city by default in an Axon program that extracts de-identified segments of city content to build products. The city can revoke that at any time. The documents do not show whether it has.

Another program in the contract gives Axon a perpetual license to de-identified data from TASER reports, body camera footage and incident reports. Police Chief Sean Case said the department does not use it. Terms for My90, an Axon survey tool, let Axon monetize survey responses.

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance's version does not mention metadata. Both versions would require Assembly approval of any contract that materially expands a covered technology.

The Assembly approved the Axon contract 11-1 in September 2025. Debate and amendments on the ordinance are set for Oct. 20. Alaska News covered the Sept. 25 work session, where the two versions split over a warrant rule for sharing police data.