Twenty CCTV cameras will be installed in the Chinatown International District (CID) this year under a Seattle Police Department pilot project, raising concerns about privacy, racial equity, and use of public funding — and for some, hope for improvement in neighborhood public safety.
Last month, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) was granted approval from the International Special Review District (ISRD) to install the 20 cameras on utility poles at intersections spread in a grid across the entire CID, from the light rail station on 5th Avenue to the heart of Little Saigon on 12th. The cameras, along with Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC) software, are part of an SPD pilot project approved by the Seattle City Council last fall that will also fund and install cameras on 3rd Avenue downtown and Aurora Avenue North.
Mayor Bruce Harrell’s 2025 budget allocated nearly $4 million dollars for the pilot, including at least $1.5 million for CCTV cameras and $2 million for the RTCC software, including funding for new civilian analyst positions working in SPD on the project. The RTCC software “integrates dispatch, camera, officer location, gunshot detection, 911 calls, records management systems, and other information into one ‘pane of glass’ (a single view),” analysis of the project from the Seattle Office of Civil Rights explains.
The cameras are expected to be installed sometime this year. In an email to the International Examiner, an SPD spokesperson said they had no information to share about when the cameras would be installed, and declined to answer other questions about the project, saying it is too early.
According to SPD’s project description provided to the ISRD, the cameras will be installed on Seattle City Light or Seattle Department of Transportation utility poles at 19 intersections across the CID, from 5th Avenue to the west to 12th Avenue to the east, and from Jackson Street in the north to S Dearborn Street to the south, including most cross streets at King, Weller, and Lane Streets in between.
SPD’s rationale for installing the cameras is to “deter and detect criminal activity,” particularly in “locations where gun violence, human trafficking, and persistent felony crime is concentrated,” according to project description. SPD said a “staffing crisis and a lack of deployment” from police means this technology is necessary, and claims the cameras will help gather evidence related to serious and violent crimes to help in investigations.
Gary Lee, a member of the CID Public Safety Council, hopes the cameras will deter crimes such as business break-ins and violent incidents, and help people in the neighborhood feel safer. “Number one is deterrent. Number two is being able to go after the criminals,” he said.
The ACLU of Washington cites a 40-year systematic review conducted by the City University of New York showing that CCTV does not reduce violent crime or help in police investigations.
The City Surveillance Impact Report, in a section outlining SPD’s rationale for the project, cites the same study, saying it shows CCTV cameras can be effective “when deployed to address specific crime problems in specific geographic places and coupled with crime prevention through environmental design measures, other crime prevention technologies, patrol, and public support.”
In its analysis of the research, the Seattle Office of Civil Rights referenced the CUNY study finding that showed CCTV can be most effective in reducing property crimes, but not violent crimes.
Tee Sannon, Technology Policy Program Director with the ACLU of Washington said that for people unaware of this research, it would make intuitive sense that CCTV cameras deter crime. “This is a very legitimate concern that folks have — they want their communities to be safer,” she said.
“What Seattle is trying to accomplish here is not something that is going to be achievable,” Sannon continued. “CCTV cameras don’t reduce violent crime. And instead, there are all of those additional harms,” especially for communities of color. “Now is not the time to be increasing surveillance that puts vulnerable or marginalized communities at risk.”
One risk, Sannon said, is that data from the cameras will be centralized in the Real Time Crime Center, and “bad actors could access that data to target individuals,” she said. “It’s this massive increase in the scale and the scope of the surveillance capabilities that SPD has.”
Sannon fears that because the data would be stored in a cloud, controlled by a vendor outside of Washington state, third parties could use it and circumvent Washington state’s robust shield laws such as the Keep Washington Working Act, that protects the privacy of people seeking reproductive or gender affirming healthcare, or people’s immigration status.
Seattle’s 2024 Surveillance Impact Report acknowledges potential impacts on civil liberties from the project, including “privacy concerns associated with surveillance of people, vehicles, and license plates in public places,” as well as potential “misuse of collected video and information/mission creep,” “lack of transparency with the public on what is being done with recordings,” and “loss of personal autonomy with surveillance of an area.”
To mitigate these impacts, the report says SPD will post signs notifying people where cameras are recording, and ensure the technology will only be used for “crimes related to gun violence, human trafficking, and other persistent crimes in the surveillance area.”
The footage will be stored locally in hard drives for 30 days before being deleted, but if video is identified as evidence in an investigation, SPD will store it electronically. According to the report, SPD will not use AI facial recognition tools.
According to the Surveillance Impact Report, “All requests for data from Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities are referred to the Mayor’s Office Legal Counsel in accordance with the Mayoral Directive.”
In its project description for the ISRD, SPD noted that although the cameras will be installed in public areas, windows in private residences often face these areas. SPD will digitally apply an opaque permanent mask preventing viewers from seeing into windows of residences. The masks will remain in place on recorded video and live stream, and will stay in place while cameras pan, tilt or zoom.
The cameras have raised other concerns in the neighborhood, including over-policing, the psychological impacts of surveillance, and fiscal responsibility.
In a Racial Equity Toolkit analysis of the proposal, the Seattle Office for Civil Rights last May expressed concerns that the proposal included “insufficient outreach to pilot communities,” and did not substantiate claims that it would address human trafficking or gun violence.
“Placement of surveillance technology in disproportionately BIPOC neighborhoods is likely to worsen racial disparities in the criminal legal system,” the Office of Civil Rights memo said. The memo also cited a “lack of clarity on what crimes surveillance will be used to investigate, a lack of clarity on what automated analytic tools will be used and how unapproved tools will be avoided.”
For Rachtha Danh, Chinatown International District Organizer with Puget Sound Sage, the project is a clear example of over-policing communities of color. “They’re putting kind of a field test on security and how to increase public safety, by putting cameras in a brown neighborhood,” he said.
Lee of the Public Safety Council is optimistic about a pilot test program in the CID. “Hey, if you want to test it, test it here,” he said. “Hopefully it will work.” He believes that the widespread use of CCTV technology in other cities and countries means it must have some efficacy.
Sannon of the ACLU points to research showing that continuous surveillance negatively impacts people’s psychological well being. “The fact that these cameras are slated for communities of color like the CID, that is a harm that is also going to be disproportionately felt by that community and the people who live there,” she said.
Danh believes the program does not justify its cost. “What will solve crimes is social programming, social services for underserved neighborhoods like ours. Instead of taking that money and putting in the cameras, just give it to us and let us figure out what to do with it.”
For example, Danh suggested the money would be better spent on a fund to repair broken storefronts for small businesses if they get broken during a burglary. “A million dollars goes a long way.”
The cameras will be installed during a two-year pilot program, and would be taken down “if data suggests the technology is ineffective,” according to SPD — but otherwise, may be extended beyond the pilot program, and the cameras may be moved if needed.
In the project description, SPD said the project’s efficacy would be evaluated through “standard performance measures already in use,” including measuring the rate of violent crime, emergency response times for priority one calls, as well as “equity, perceptions of trust, perceptions of safety.”
“Successful implementation of the CCTV technology will be indicated by a decrease in violent crime, priority one response time, no increase or a decline in measures of police over-presence, measure of disparate impact, and an increase in perceptions of trust and safety,” according to SPD.
While an SPD spokesperson said the department is still considering which cameras to use, recent application materials to the ISRD show the department proposing cameras manufactured by Axis, a Swedish-based manufacturer of surveillance cameras.
According to the City’s Surveillance Impact Report, the CCTV systems might include a range of cameras from simple fixed cameras to ones with pan-tilt-zoom capability as well as infrared night vision, high definition imaging. They will also record and store video and audio.
SPD’s effort to install the cameras follows an unsuccessful one in 2019 brought forward by activist Nora Chan with the Seniors in Action Foundation. Chan raised money to install cameras that would cover all outdoor areas in the CID, replacing non-functional cameras that had been installed in 2011 and staffed by the CIDBIA.
At the time, the CIDBIA and other neighborhood organizations raised concerns about privacy and operational costs of staffing the project. Without funding to maintain the project and organization willing to take on the project, the project died.
