Ordinance would make police ask before buying surveillance tech

Anchorage police would have to get Assembly approval before buying new surveillance technology, and the municipality would be barred from joining outside surveillance data networks, under an ordinance headed to a public hearing.

The measure sets restrictions on automated license plate readers, real-time crime center operations and live camera monitoring, all of which the city already uses. It limits how long surveillance data can be kept and adds audit and enforcement provisions. It would repeal and replace the chapter of municipal code that currently governs surveillance technology.

The network provision would keep Anchorage out of the arrangements that let agencies pool license plate and camera records across jurisdictions.

Assembly Members Keith McCormick and Sydney Scout, and Assembly Vice Chair Daniel Volland, are the sponsors.

The concern predates the ordinance. Discussing the municipality's public-records and data-retention work at the Assembly's Feb. 17 meeting, Mayor Suzanne LaFrance said it had already run into "the expansion of the kind of real-time policing and the license plate readers and all the cameras on all the intersections."

The Assembly takes public testimony Sept. 1 at 6 pm in the Assembly Chambers at the Loussac Library. Written and phone testimony closes at 5 pm Aug. 31. In-person testimony requires no sign-up.

The Anchorage Police Department's position on the ordinance does not appear in the record.