The San Marcos Police Department launched Connect San Marcos in October, allowing residents and business owners to register and integrate security cameras to assist in investigations.
SMPD issued a press release informing about Connect and its goals for the community. Connect is in association with Axon Fuse, a public safety technology company that works with law enforcement, militaries and campuses across the globe. The goal of Connect is to help solve investigations faster and keep the community safer.
There are currently two levels of participation for the program, with level one being a community camera registry. Registered cameras would be used to create an interactive map of security cameras across the city. If an incident occurs, SMPD could pinpoint the area of the incident, identify the registered cameras in the area and ask residents for footage.
Level two involves registered cameras in businesses and schools, which allows SMPD to access camera feeds if emergency situations occur near those areas. In order to share the footage, businesses are required to have an Axon FususCORE operations and system device and must permit SMPD to access the footage. The device unites live video, alerts and field data to enhance field operations.
“Public safety agencies depend on neighborhoods to mitigate and investigate crimes and be better equipped as first responders on the scene of the critical incidents,” the city of San Marcos wrote on the Connect San Marcos website. “The Axon Fusus system serves to increase community security while maintaining personal privacy.”
Brian Withrow, criminal justice professor, said the use of cameras is helpful in police investigations.
“What cameras do is they put an objective eye on a situation,” Withrow said. “The witnesses or people involved in that situation, we don’t have to rely on their memory or perception of what happened.”
According to AxonFuse, the devices do not contain any facial recognition technology, emphasizing their technology is used to identify vehicles and weapons. However, Russell Wilde, public safety communications specialist for the city, confirmed SMPD uses Clearview AI facial recognition software in investigations.
Critics, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), warn that the use of facial recognition technology includes concerns related to privacy and misidentifying people of color. “The biggest danger is that this technology will be used for general, suspicionless surveillance systems,” ACLU wrote on its website.
Kathleen Padilla, assistant professor in the department of criminal justice and criminology, said police-community relations can be fostered through initiatives like Connect San Marcos.
“Some of the things we talk about in policing are related to like community policing and procedural justice, which are concepts that a lot of people, at least, are familiar with the terminology,” Padilla said. “[Community] policing takes the responsibility for community safety off of law enforcement entirely. So, it’s not just their responsibility, but they’re sharing that responsibility with the community. We all are active participants in community safety.”
Padilla spoke about the procedures law enforcement must follow and the transparency of SMPD in regard to the Connect program in response to residents concerned about privacy issues.
“I think most of their [programs] are fairly well encrypted,” Padilla said. “I cannot speak to what any of their data sharing policies look like, just from my kind of cursory look through, everything is fairly encrypted. Standing by Connect San Marcos, that their premise that you have to have the Criminal Justice Information Services [CJIS] certification or clearance in order to access anything.”
In the FAQ section of the program on the city’s website, the data from any camera is only accessible to authorized users and cannot be requested as public data. Residents who register are able to resign from the program at any point.
Across Texas, multiple cities have implemented programs like Connect San Marcos, giving their residents the choice to volunteer in community safety. 42 cameras have been registered, and 78 cameras have been integrated so far, according to the Connect San Marcos website.
