Seattle mayor to decide future of city CCTV cameras

Tonight, Fox 13 News has obtained a new audit of SPD's real-time crime center. Mayor Katie Wilson is expected to address the findings tomorrow as she weighs the future of city cameras. Fox 13's Dan Griffin is live in the newsroom with what we know right now. Dan? Well, the audit scrutinizes Seattle's camera network and privacy guard rails, but takes no stance on expanding or shutting it down. Commissioned by Mayor Katie Wilson, the NYU Policing Project audit examines SPD's Axon FUSIS platform and the more than 500 cameras feeding the real-time crime center, including S-DOT traffic cams, feeds shared by private businesses, police buildings, and CCTV pilots in Belltown, Downtown, and Aurora. The audit found analysts used them to aid active 911 calls and help detectives solve cases. It found safeguards including no passive monitoring, a facial recognition ban, digital blocks on second-story windows, and purging raw CCTV footage in five days. Use for immigration enforcement or prosecuting protected health care is banned. Still, the authors warned federal subpoenas or public records requests could expose footage to out-of-state agencies. They cited major gaps including no uniform privacy. Privacy rules across cameras, cloud evidence retained indefinitely, and no logged reasons required to view live feeds. They also flag there are no clear protest policies and say that tracking suspects after the fact without a warrant risks Fourth Amendment violations. The audit offers 19 recommendations, including mandating warrants for non-emergency tracking and creating a public usage Dashboard. Now, SPD says that the center triples arrest odds, but auditors note that counts any time an analyst simply looks at a screen. The University of Pennsylvania study evaluating crime deterrence wraps up in late 2027. In the newsroom, Dan Griffin, Fox 13 News.