WHO’S KEEPING AN EYE ON
SEATTLE’S
SURVIELLANCE
CAMERAS?
POINTING TO FUNDING SOURCES AND INDUSTRY TIES, CRITICS QUESTION PROPOSED AUDITOR’S INDEPENDENCE.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MEL IDISOR
WRITTEN BY MAYA TIZON
Published in collaboration with The South Seattle Emerald.
[MARCH 27, 2026] | On March 19, Mayor Katie Wilson announced the city would see a partial expansion of surveillance cameras operated by the Seattle Police Department (SPD). As part of that announcement, Wilson said that the New York University School of Law Policing Project (NYUPP), a public-safety-focused think tank, had been chosen by city officials to audit the protocols and civil-rights implications of the surveillance system.
As part of the expansion, the city will go ahead with installing cameras in the Stadium District ahead of the upcoming FIFA World Cup, Wilson said, stating that they won’t be turned on unless there are warnings of a threat to public safety. A camera near a reproductive-health clinic will also be disabled. The addition of CCTV systems near Garfield High School and in Capitol Hill will be placed on hold pending the results of NYUPP’s audit, Wilson added.
While Wilson framed the audit as an opportunity to thoroughly evaluate the program during its “pilot” stage, critics and journalists have raised questions about the Policing Project’s independence, pointing to the think tank’s funders, track record, and connections to current and former SPD leaders. Some groups have also voiced concerns about the Policing Project’s ties to policing-technology companies, alleging that some corporations may have funded NYUPP because they knew “what they can expect in return,” including “new pathways to expanding their business, and research promoting their products.” Other critics are concerned that the NYUPP’s audit would skirt around the core issues and debates at stake, and may deflect public criticism by tweaking the system’s operations, rather than considering the merits and risks of its existence writ large.
Why did the city pick NYUPP?
Founded in 2015, NYUPP is a non-profit that, among other tasks, drafts public safety-oriented legislative proposals, conducts departmental audits, and works to regulate the development and oversight of surveillance technologies. The group has an extensive track record conducting police-focused audits and investigations around the country. In 2020, the group looked into Baltimore Police Department’s Aerial Investigation Research Program (AIR), a pilot program that used a combination of aerial and ground surveillance to identify and track suspects. NYUPP’s researchers found “serious concerns” with the consequences of the program for individuals’ civil rights, writing that the program’s “potential for invasive surveillance is too great to be implemented without democratic authorization.”
According to an NYUPP employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the research group will be looking into the Seattle program’s collection, retention, security, and sharing of data. It will be tasked with answering questions such as, Do these cameras violate our First-Amendment right of free speech? Or our Fourth-Amendment right to be secure against unreasonable seizures and searches? The audit will then determine whether the program violates equal protection statutes, democratic accountability requirements, and/or other governance rules.
A timeline for these audits can vary case by case, but often take months, the employee said.
In a written statement, Sage Wilson, Deputy Communications Director at the Office of the Mayor, said the audit will likely take several months, and may require “additional time” to “address any weaknesses in security, data governance, and privacy protections that may be identified in the audit.” (Sage Wilson is not related to Mayor Wilson.)
Sage Wilson said that NYUPP “came recommended by community groups and organizations who share our interest in evaluating our use of the RTCC for privacy and data governance concerns.” The Mayor’s office reviewed similar audits the group had conducted elsewhere, and was “impressed with their independence and the quality of their work.” That included the NYUPP’s statements in favor of new restrictions on automated license plate readers in Washington State, which was a “different perspective than that of SPD.”
The NYUPP’s ties to SPD
On March 23, PubliCola reported that SPD Chief Shon Barnes, who joined the NYUPP’s advisory board in 2025, resigned from his role to avoid “any potential conflict of interest.” Barnes reportedly stepped down before attending his first meeting. The spokesperson for Mayor Wilson said Barnes “chose to resign from the advisory board” in order to “ensure the audit process instills the highest degree of confidence.”
The Policing Project’s ties to current and former SPD leadership precedes Barnes’s short-lived appointment to the advisory board. Former SPD Chief Kathleen O’Toole — who led the department between 2014 and 2018, and who helped lead the SPD leadership search that resulted in Shon Barnes’s appointment to the SPD last year — remains publicly listed on the Policing Project’s advisory board. And NYUPP previously operated the AI Ethics Board for Axon, the policing-technology provider contracted to provide the SPD with its CCTV cameras. NYUPP formally cut ties to Axon following the latter’s announcement of a project to deploy armed drones in schools to combat mass shootings. As previously reported by The Stranger, former SPD Chief Carmen Best — O’Toole’s successor — remained on the board.
SPD did not respond to a request for comment.
The contract with NYUPP remains “under negotiation,” the Mayor’s spokesperson said.
The think tank’s funding and messaging
Critics of surveillance programs similar to Seattle’s have pointed out NYUPP’s ties to some policing-technology providers and conservative foundations. The project’s funders include Mark43, the policing software provider, the Charles Koch Foundation, and Microsoft — in addition to civil-rights focused groups like Justice Catalyst. Kathleen O’Toole also sits on Mark43’s board of advisors.
Activists in Los Angeles have previously alleged that the NYUPP effectively helps police departments write guidelines that lets them use surveillance technologies sold by companies that have funded NYUPP. They have also raised questions about the substance of a meeting between Barry Friedman, NYUPP’s founder, and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in 2020; in communications with Friedman, an LAPD official framed the NYUPP’s work as helping “law enforcement to overcome the negative perceptions of tech in the delivery of police services.”
In 2022, students at NYU Law School, where the Policing Project is based, issued a statement addressed to the school’s dean, demanding that, among other requirements, the Project “clarify the specifics of its funding” and “reject funding from police agencies and companies that profit off surveillance.” They alleged that policing-technology companies, including Axon and the gunshot detection system ShotSpotter, funded the Policing Project because they knew “what they can expect in return,” including “new pathways to expanding their business, and research promoting their products.”
What’s happening to the cameras now?
In April 2025, SPD launched over 60 surveillance cameras and the Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC), a technological hub for law enforcement to track suspects. There are cameras along Aurora Avenue North, in the Downtown core, and in the Chinatown-International District (CID). Those cameras will remain operational during the audit.
In addition to the NYUPP audit, Seattle’s Office of Inspector General previously signed an auditing contract with the University of Pennsylvania’s Crime and Justice Policy Lab. The group is evaluating the pilot program’s effectiveness in investigative outcomes, police operations, and community perceptions of safety — effectively separating the effectiveness of the surveillance system, and its civil-rights implications, into two distinct queries. The Crime and Justice Policy Lab’s evaluation is set to occur in 2026, according to city documents. Sage Wilson from the Mayor’s office noted that the University of Pennsylvania study “was planned before this administration,” and will cost approximately $375,000.
Community members have expressed a strong opposition for the use of surveillance cameras, including the Transit Riders Union, the political advocacy organization co-founded by Mayor Wilson in 2011, as well as a group of her campaign staffers. The Transit Riders Union’s open letter called on city government to shut down the surveillance system, which they say “risks the safety of immigrant communities, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities, and everyone living in or visiting Seattle.” They suggested the budget allocated for the system be redistributed to “violence prevention strategies that have been proven effective at reducing community violence and creating safety.”
In the South End, City Councilmember Eddie Lin (District 2) has opposed the use of surveillance cameras without an adequate audit, arguing it could endanger vulnerable groups under the current presidential administration. But following several tragedies, including the fatal shooting of two Rainier Beach High School Students in January, some parents and community members urged Mayor Wilson to install more cameras in the district.
“It’s very understandable why people want them,” Lin said. “As we weigh the concerns about public safety and potential benefits, we need to be prioritizing the communities most impacted by public safety — communities like Rainier Beach, communities like Garfield. We need to make sure that we are listening to those communities, but also listening to our immigrant community that are concerned about privacy, to our communities that are seeking reproductive health care, deferring care, to make sure that their concerns are also being heard. But it’s a balance.”
The contract with NYUPP remains “under negotiation,” the Mayor’s spokesperson said.
Update March 28, 7:53am:
At the Town Hall on Security and Surveillance on Friday, March 27, event moderator Florangela Davila, Executive Editor of The South Seattle Emerald, asked Mayor Wilson whether other groups exist that could conduct the audit currently being contracted out to NYUPP. Citing this article, Davila noted that NYUPP’s connections to — and funding from — policing-technology providers raise questions about the group’s independence.
Wilson responded that she and her office had initially chosen NYUPP due to the timely demands of their plan. The Mayor’s office did not issue a request for proposal (RFP) prior to engaging with NYUPP, she said — adding that she and her office are open to working with other auditors.