Immigration, reproductive health, and gender affirming care: City Council proposal would expand Seattle’s kill switch on police surveillance data

The Seattle City Council’s public safety committee has been busy this winter with legislation shaping Seattle Police Department policies around immigration and federal enforcement. Spring arrives with legislation to lay the groundwork for elements of Mayor Katie Wilson’s changes to the city’s surveillance policies and an ordinance to align Seattle’s policies about when law enforcement personnel may inquire into citizenship or immigration status with state law.

Tuesday, the committee will take up legislation to expand the triggers for a mandatory 60-day pause in data collection for the Seattle Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center cameras and Automated License Plate Recognition systems.

CHS reported last week as Wilson ordered a planned rollout of the system’s cameras to Capitol Hill and the Central District to be put on hold pending “a privacy and data governance audit” of the city’s surveillance technology.”

Current Seattle law already implements a 60-day pause of CCTV data collection if the city or its vendor “receives a warrant, subpoena, or court order for Seattle CCTV data in a federal civil immigration enforcement matter, or if Seattle CCTV data is released pursuant to law for use in a federal civil immigration enforcement matter.”

The changes being taken up Tuesday would expand that protection to the city’s license plate data as well as add new conditions for the legal kill switch including a 60-day shutdown if the data is related to “a reproductive health care or gender affirming care matter.”

The shutdown triggers would be expanded to include orders from the mayor’s office and Chief Shon Barnes:

if the Mayor and Police Chief have determined that CCTV or ALPR data is being used, or potentially will be used, for civil immigration or reproductive health or gender affirming care enforcement purposes, including uses that may occur concurrently with an increased presence of civil immigration enforcement personnel in Seattle

The proposal would also authorize Wilson to turn data collection back on temporarily for the CCTV and ALPR systems “when necessary to gather and transmit to prosecutors evidence of potentially unlawful acts that occur during civil immigration or reproductive health care or gender affirming care enforcement operations.”

As the legislative changes take shape, council analysis shows SPD says the addition of the license plate data to any 60-day suspension is technically doable in one business day — but under the current contract with Axon, SPD says, Seattle will need to keep paying for the service even during any emergency shutdown.

Meanwhile, the public safety committee is also taking up a small but important change to city law regarding law enforcement inquiries regarding immigration status. The current Seattle Municipal Code “completely forbids SPD personnel from making any inquiry about immigration or citizenship status,” according to a council analysis. State law include specific circumstances under which local law enforcement agencies are allowed to make the inquiries.

According to the analysis, the key change for Seattle’s muni code would be an addition mirroring the state statute — the exception highlighted in bold by CHS, below:

State and local law enforcement agencies may not […] [i]nquire into or collect information about an individual’s immigration or citizenship status or place of birth unless there is a connection between such information and an investigation into a violation of state or local criminal law

A memo on the legislative proposal lays out the basics of the change:

These criteria describing allowable police immigration status inquiries under Municipal Code vary in important ways from those allowed under state law. Notably, while state law requires a “connection” between status and/or place of birth and “investigation into a violation of state or local criminal law” (emphasis added), current City code describes a multi-part “reasonable suspicion” test that requires police to believe that any felony has been committed and describes elements (removal and reentry) that are exclusively subjects of federal immigration law, not Washington State law or City Code.

While the ordinance would shift the official language in the city’s code, it doesn’t appear it will impact SPD’s day to day policy. According to the council analysis, “department policy already appears to be compliant with the proposed changes under this legislation.”

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