LiveView cameras taken off the agenda for Austin City Council Meeting

On Monday, January 26, the Austin City Council posted their draft agendas for an upcoming work session (on Tuesday, February 3) and regular Council meeting (on Thursday February 5). Of note was Item 3 on the regular meeting agenda: “Authorize a contract for the rental of a mobile security trailer and monitoring services for various parkland areas for Austin Parks and Recreation with LiveView Technologies . . .” Because this resolution involved the deployment of AI-enabled surveillance cameras that would be controlled by a private corporation, the policy team at Grassroots Leadership, in collaboration with an Austin-based anti-surveillance coalition, developed testimonies to deliver at the Tuesday work session. In response to the concerns raised by community activists that these cameras could be used to target undocumented people and communities of color, city of Austin staff removed the item from the agenda for the following Thursday’s regular Council meeting.

At a press conference following the work session, Grassroots Leadership’s Policy and Research Organizer Hans Maverick relayed the concerns of the community:  that the AI data on which the LiveView system was trained was likely racially biased; that it would target people of color; that the surveillance cameras would likely deter lawful speech and protests in public parks, especially by undocumented people; and that there was a non-zero chance that the data could inadvertently or intentionally end up on the hands of federal agencies like ICE or CBP.

Hans, along with other speakers at the press conference, suggested that the City’s money could be better spent on services for undocumented and unhoused people, thereby reducing the root causes of criminal behavior. Ultimately, the City Council took the item off their agenda, and action on the item has been postponed indefinitely.