This is a joint committee meeting of public safety and economic development.

We're here to discuss the uh terms of the new axon contract for license plate readers.

I am joined by Councillor Nave, Counselor Moore, Counselor Williams, President Paniagua, Joe Barry, Sue Katzov, and Chief Trudeau.

Um so who wants to start, Chief, you want to start?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'll start.

Oh, first of all, thanks for uh having us here.

Also want to thank the council for uh working with us on this so we don't have a gap in uh LPR service between our current existing LPRs and going to Axon.

It's very important to us, so thank you.

Um so I thought we'd kick it off by going over the uh the axon um terms.

Um I think I think what we want to do um because the terms until we actually sign a contract are not uh for public dissemination, it would be considered attorney client privilege.

Let's just talk about in general what the product provides for SPD.

Okay.

So uh what we what we'd like is uh you know, these 26 uh LPR readers um for public safety and for investigations.

Um basically what the product does um depending on the uh the install, it goes on a light pole or it goes on a fixed pole.

Um it uh has a camera that's uh reads multiple lanes of traffic, it reads um cars going at uh various speeds, highway speeds, traffic speeds, and then compiles that data into a system that allows the police department to go back and based on criminal investigations search that data to assist us in you know solving crime.

So that's the the basic uh premise behind the LPRs and and what SPD's looking for uh in their use.

And I would like to know because I think there are a few points that are um vitally important for this body and the public to understand.

Um the data that is collected as a result of the installation of LPRs is data that is solely owned and accessed by SPD in the city.

It is not owned or controlled by the vendor.

They provide a clo what's called a closed system, so that only the data is only being uh transmitted to SPD for their use.

So I think that that is an important feature um that may be of import.

So they can't share data because they don't have data to share.

The data only lives within SPD.

Thanks for sharing that.

So that that is a huge concern in our community.

So thank you.

Um one question I do have, Deputy Chief, is um with our crime rates.

Um how many crimes do you estimate that we're solving because of these cameras?

You took my question.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

I stole this question.

So percentage-wise, I can't, I don't have a number percentage-wise.

That'd be an anecdotal number.

But for our major crimes, there's almost any no homicides at all that don't happen to have a vehicle involved in them.

So I can tell you that for our major crimes, they're used frequently.

I think Axon put a number at 70% of crimes overall, their number is a vehicle is involved in the crime.

Um so you know, for our major crimes, the percentage is high, and I think overall that that number is is pretty accurate, you know, based on that.

And thinking about evidence and closing cases.

I imagine that in order to you know go to a prosecutor, you have to have a number of different points of evidence.

How critical would LPR data be compared to all of the other data that you would bring to a prosecutor?

And what does that look like?

Yeah, so I mean, I think I think you know, there's gonna be witness victim statements, all right.

And we all know how how those identifications are witness statements can go in terms of that.

I think this LPR data is fact-based, right?

It takes a review by an officer, right?

I mean, we're not just going by the read.

We have to go into the system, but we're actually looking at that plate, we're looking at that car, we know that car was there.

And I think what it does is it opens us up to additional leads.

That's what the LPR system does, right?

I think once we know that car, now we have an avenue to get into potential other people.

Now we can track that car to other locations where there may they go into a store or there may be other evidence, or they say they purchase something.

We're we're looking at you know those financial records.

So I think that's very important in establishing that first lead that allows detectives and officers to build from there.

But it's not just the lead, right?

There's a review process that takes place based on that um that hit.

Another question I have, and again, this is probably just to quell the public's concerns.

Sure.

Um, you're not staring at these cameras looking for crime, right?

These you're going to the cameras once a crime's been committed and you're trying to use them to solve it, right?

Yeah, that's a great question.

There's no active monitoring of the uh LPR cameras like our cops cameras.

Um so this is uh uh after the fact, um, you know, somebody provides a partial plate, somebody provides a location where it occurred, and we're going in and we're specifically looking at that time frame.

We're specifically looking at the location where this might have occurred, and um there's no active monitoring.

Thank you.

So I think the hot topic, right?

Can we talk about the legality uh of the data that comes from the LPRs?

And this might be a joint question.

If we get a request from a federal immigration agency to access that data, what that looks like on our end if they ask for it.

Yeah, so I think um this came up in the surveillance committee's review, um, and absent a court order or a subpoena in you know from uh ICE or a federal entity, we will not share that that information.

And that's yeah, sorry, I'm stealing your thought.

Go ahead.

That subpoena goes to who, Sue.

If they were to subpoena the data looking for person.

So because the data is owned and housed only with SPD.

I can't tell you that the vendor wouldn't receive a subpoena, but they don't have the information to supply back.

So they would let us know that they received a subpoena, but only SPD has data that would be responsive to that subpoena.

So it would have to come through this office in order to be responsive to that subpoena.

Is that answer your question?

And that's the only way it would be we'd be sharing.

Correct.

I said we have no other choice I have.

Correct.

With advice for the federal entities, that's great.

Yep.

And Chief, now let's you know, take the federal government out of the equation.

What if we're talking about do it or manliots or New York State?

What is that process?

So right now that our current footprint is that we're not sharing information with uh those other agencies.

We would like to enter into MOAs down the line that says we'll share with you our data, but you are not allowed to share that data beyond just yourself.

I think there is value in the collective law enforcement community within Onadaga County, because crime doesn't stop at our borders to share that information locally for criminal prosecutions.

But that agreement, which we still have to work out, would be just for that agency that we're working with.

There's no sharing of that information beyond that entity to ICE or to other agencies.

And I think what you're saying, Chief, is the request would have to be specific, tied to a crime at on a date at an area.

It's not, hey, we want to see your LPR data for the month of January.

That's not what Chief is talking about.

It would be tied to a specific crime that had occurred, and the adjacent law enforcement agency locally is trying to solve that incident.

And with so along the same road, so with in the past with previous surveyors, we had for a year or so accidentally or not accidentally left a button on on that website that was sharing our data with other agencies across the country.

Can we be assured that with this new one, none of those buttons are on?

Yeah, that's absolutely the case.

This is an opt-in situation, not an opt-out.

So as a standard, you're not sharing with anyone unless you check the box to do that.

So we are assuring you that we're not sharing any of that data with the folks that are the entities that you're concerned with.

And I just want a point of a clarification.

It for local agencies, our footprint would be if we are able to share that data so that they can go into their systems and look at our data on an ongoing basis.

If that's not something that we want to do, but that would be our position because I can assure you that with the wit, the sheriff's department, um, you know, towns and villages, again, crime is so transient between our small community that if able, we would like to share that data, but to have safeguards in place in an MOA that says you guys can't share it with somebody else.

That would be where we'd like to go.

But that is not where we're at now, and there'll be a lot of discussions to get there.

I just wanted to clarify that.

No sharing with federal agencies at all, but onadaga county as a community, I think benefits from a sharing to some degree of law enforcement data that's got guardrails and is protected.

I want to clarify.

Our data for the for the license plate readers is, however, hosted on Axon systems, correct?

It's in a cloud.

Yes.

It's in a cloud.

So they physically contain that data in a processing center someplace.

If there is a data breach, what are they liable for?

It's uh I don't know the answer to that.

I don't know that.

That would be something we would want to discuss in executive session because it would form one of the terms of the contract.

Okay, so let's talk about the numbers of LPRs.

So we currently have 13 in the city now.

The plan is the original plan was to have 26, but they we didn't get to there.

The plan is to go back and have 26.

Yes, it is.

We're looking for 26.

Do we have those locations in Snow?

We're looking at the same locations that were in the original.

Okay.

Can we get those locations?

Absolutely.

Um I don't want to step over.

Just one more.

Um there's a lot of concern in the community um about the city at all doing business with any companies that also do business with ICE.

So after having discussions with you, I understand that there's very limited amount of companies out there that can provide these services to us.

You guys are already using Exxon for your body warm cameras and such.

So I just want to um if you could just talk on the fact that there's not a lot of other things, companies out there that we can go to for these services that we need in our city, which is why we are doing this.

Yeah, I think a lot of the state-of-the-art law enforcement technologies that we would like to use are going to be used by other federal agencies, including ICE.

There's a reason for that, right?

Because they're probably some of the best across the nation.

And to limit our ability to use some of those best systems only hurts the Syracuse community, right?

It's not like it's gonna affect them selling that product to ICE or any other entity that we have a concern with, but it will severely limit what SPD is able to do because those technologies, like I said, are some of the best, and that's the reasons why they're used across, you know, at what point and where does that end?

I mean, Microsoft products are used across a variety of different agencies.

I just drove here in a Chevy.

You know, those potentially are also gonna be used by federal agencies, right?

I think there's maybe other ways to for the council, and that's up to you, but uh to to handle that, but to limit our ability just because another entity uses it, only hurts the Syracuse community from using and prohibits us from using some of the best law enforcement tools that are out there.

Thank you.

This may have already been said, and I apologize for arriving late to the meeting.

Could you tell me what you use these for and what specific crimes they have been used to solve, if any?

Oh, the LPRs?

Yes.

Yeah, so we did talk about that a little bit, but um right off the bat, I think almost every single homicide that we have has a vehicle involved, and we've searched uh for those.

Um but it it really runs the gamut.

I think we uh said that potentially 70 percent across the nation crimes have vehicles involved.

So there is a lot of opportunity for these LPR cameras to be used to solve crime in there by preventing crime when you take those criminals.

But specific specifically for SPD.

Yeah, we're gonna there's I there's no limit on it's just crimes.

Um there's no limit, like we're not just using them for violent crimes, it is crimes across the board where a vehicle is involved.

These could potentially be used for.

Could you also um repeat uh for the counselor the fact that you're not watching live feeds?

Yeah.

That you're only doing you're only using it as a tool when a crime or other incident has occurred.

Yeah, there's a differentiation between our cops cameras that we've had for years, there's you know potential live monitoring on that for surveillances and stuff like that.

The LPR cameras are different.

We only use the data from those LPR cameras in a uh well reactive manner, right?

Um, so that you know we have a crime, um we have specific information about suspects in a vehicle.

We go in and search um that there's no live monitoring um in terms of the camera.

We will get hits if a uh if a car goes by that's stolen or if there's a hit on the car because it has uh is tied to an abduction, there are hits for that, but there's no live monitoring for just the sake of uh looking at the camera.

But what length of time do we keep the the actual food HQ?

Yeah, great question.

Right now our policy says 30 days.

Um the surveillance working group, I think, had from three minutes to up to a year with the median vote being 30 days.

So I think that's that's you know an appropriate we're we're comfortable with that 30 days.

Chief, is there a situation where you extend that?

So let me just if if you have a homicide on a certain corner where you know there's license plate reader, do you request to keep data for that corner for let's say you know, let's keep that longer because we may come up on something?

Sure, that's exactly so any anytime we pull data from the system for a crime, right?

We're gonna archive it off and it becomes part of evidence.

The schedule for the retention of that evidence follows the crime um in the in the in the discovery for that crime.

And that's all very much dependent on the crime.

Murders, rapes, you have to keep forever, right?

And then as the crime decreases to misdemeanors, and so that length of time that we need to keep that shortens, but just the bulk data that's not being used um in uh a criminal prosecution or is for evidence is 30 days, and then after that it follows the retention based on the crime.

So I I wanted to just share the real life example that you shared with me, the woman on the north side that was um killed, I think a couple of few years ago, a couple years ago.

Um that was solved with cameras, right?

Yeah, yep, yes.

So I just want to make the public aware that's oh yeah, uh they they are critical in some of our larger crimes and in in piecing things together.

Yeah, I think I said that you know, almost every single homicide we're using uh the LPR cameras.

So just to be clear, so once he's the archive where you keep whatever length after you've resolved a crime or or it dilutes into whatever action, uh then those are erased at the time.

Yeah, so let me let me clarify that again for the yeah.

I'll expand on that.

So let's just take uh the LPR reads, and let's say uh on those reads, there none of the data is uh is used in any criminal prosecution for evidence.

That is all gone in 30 days.

Anything that we don't touch.

Let's say we have a homicide, right?

And a car um is in a certain area of the city where it could potentially hit any of these LPRs.

The minute we take that data from the LPR system for that particular crime and we move it over into the evidence bucket, now we have to retain that data for as long as is stipulated based on that crime.

So once it comes out of that system, because we're using it for a prosecution or evidence in a crime, the retention of that data doesn't follow the 30-day retention policy within the in the policy, it follows the retention policy based on the CPL in the crime.

Yes.

So it's dictated by state law, right?

Okay, okay, thank you.

Yeah.

I ask because I don't actually know the dispers the geographic dispersion of the cameras that we currently have and the cameras, the 26 prospective sites.

Is that every quadrant of the city?

Yes, I yeah, it there it's it's uh dispersed and it's also dispersed in intentional locations where traffic would converge on and off ramps, major intersections, um, but it is dispersed and I can get you those locations.

Are those cross-referenced with our net zero data?

I'm sorry, the what?

So the vision zero, sorry, vision zero data?

The places where people would have more proximity with traffic in terms of uh vehicle versus humanity.

Uh I'm not I don't think so.

No.

Okay, no.

No, no, no correlation there.

Now not to say that we couldn't, um, but I'm just not familiar with that.

Chief, I had a question.

So when a constituent or anyone else share some information with you, a bandit cars covered with snow, possibly stolen a person, whether they send it to me, a plate or register that goes to you, that stays within, right?

You might share it with New York State, maybe probably motor vehicles, you know, so the information that stays within, it's not gonna be so you're talking about any tips that we receive.

Yeah, any tips though.

Yeah, any tips that are are uh relative to the Syracuse Police Department, stay with the Syracuse Police Department.

Okay, if there's if that leads into a broader investigation with other agencies involved, there's opportunities there for the sharing of it, but just the tips that come in are are typically just within houses.

In the last couple weeks, I've seen vehicles that have been I received tips, they were buried with snow, some had no license or registration, they may have been snowing.

So those things it's really helps a lot of investigations.

Yeah.

Okay.

Are you aware of any police departments across the country that are not uh using LPRs?

None of the major ones.

Anybody have more questions that are non-contractual?

If not, we'll go into executive session.

Okay, can I have a motion to go into executive session?

Second, all in favor?

Uh to discuss a legal advice.

Executive session to go to get legal advice on contract terms.

Okay.

Motion.

Motion second.

Second.

All in favor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So you're in your game.