Surveillance Cameras in South Orange?
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A friend sent us this from Next Door:
Please read Ben Vitale's OpEd below
This essay raises important issues regarding digital face recognition abuse, privacy laws, individual liberties, police accountability, and misuse of this technology stored in databases beyond our zip code by other officials.
Why not purchase police body cameras with such funds in our budget and insist on more accountability?
https://villagegreennj.com/police-and-fire/opinion-upgrades-to-south-orange-police-security-camera-network-should-be-paused/
The Village Green recently reported on the South Orange Police Department’s surveillance camera project. I call on the Village Trustees to suspend this project, conduct broad public consultation, debate, and vote. Budget approval is not enough, because the cameras raise issues beyond dollar costs. Neither privacy nor increased police power have been given much weight, and it seems an odd time in history to be increasing police power.
Village Administrator Adam Loehner says the town is paying about $50,000 to MindsEye Technologies, of Parsippany, to implement the project. Another $50,000 is budgeted next year. The cameras also have ongoing operating costs paid to Verkada, the “cloud” vendor. Low capital costs make cloud cameras attractive. In-story ad They’re easy to deploy, too, because they connect wirelessly, via cellular networks, then over the public internet. Unlike the old cameras, which keep the video here in town, these feed into Verkada’s “cloud” data centers. All this has security consequences.
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These are the email addresses for SO Board of Trustees: @southorange.org" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">wclarke@southorange.org, @southorange.org" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">dcoallier@southorange.org, @southorange.org" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">khilton@southorange.org, @southorange.org" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">sjones@southorange.org, @southorange.org" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">sschnall@southorange.org, uckerman@southorange.org" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">bzuckerman@southorange.org,