Seattle is currently considering a $1 million expansion to its Fusus-powered surveillance system; four community meetings on the proposal were scheduled in August.
Seattle’s Surveillance Advisory Working Group, which is authorized by city law to evaluate city surveillance contracts and their potential impact on issues such as civil rights and civil liberties, produced a report in July of last year with five of six members opposing the “Connect Seattle” plan. Their concerns ranged from “disparate impacts … on minority communities” to a lack of specific information on the technology.
René Peters, who was co-chair of the group at the time and works at AI chipmaker NVIDIA, said the city ignored his group’s report. At one city council meeting last year, a police official got several hours to make a presentation on the proposed surveillance system, while Peters was given just one minute of public comment despite his group’s official watchdog role.
When told about Freeman’s role in communicating to Seattle about Fusus, Peters said, “If we had had that information, there would have been a lot more people at city council meetings, and demonstrations [against the proposal].”
Gross-Shader highlighted the difference between sharing information with peers and a salesperson. “If you’re a peer jurisdiction talking to someone from another peer jurisdiction, you assume you’re speaking to another public servant,” she said. “Not an agent of a for-profit corporation.”
“He’s trusted, and it was a betrayal of that trust, because [Seattle employees] thought he was a public servant,” she added. “It’s disturbing that a public servant would do that — and that a tech company would not disclose the relationship.”
Gross-Shader also noted that the city had not seen research demonstrating the ability of Fusus’s technology to play a significant role in reducing retail theft, the issue that originally brought her to look into the company.
“In the absence of rigorous evaluations … it’s a practical matter for jurisdictions,” she said. “You weigh the experience of other jurisdictions. But if somebody has undisclosed financial interests, how can we trust what they offer as their experience?”
