CPD Proposal for Surveillance Cameras in Harvard Square Sparks Privacy Concerns

A Cambridge Police Department proposal to install surveillance cameras in public spaces throughout the city — including Harvard Square — is in limbo after the Massachusetts American Civil Liberties Union and other local activists raised concerns about its impact on residents’ privacy.

Under CPD’s proposal, the city would first deploy “highly visible” surveillance cameras in Central Square as a test run before placing them in other major public areas, including Harvard, Porter, and Inman Squares. The cameras would help CPD prevent and identify criminal behavior, CPD Commissioner Christine A. Elow wrote in a report to the City Council.

But the proposal received pushback from Emiliano Falcon-Morano, a lawyer for the Technology for Liberty Program at the Massachusetts ACLU, who raised concerns around data sharing practices with other government agencies and a lack of specificity regarding privacy provisions and camera details.

“The ACLU recommends that this technology not be approved until the police department addresses several important questions and concerns to ensure that it is deployed in a manner that conforms with civil rights and civil liberties,” Falcon-Morano wrote in a letter to the Council.

While the Council was initially set to consider the proposal in a Monday meeting, Councilor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler exercised his charter right to unilaterally delay a vote until the body’s next meeting in September so CPD could address the ACLU’s questions.

CPD Spokesperson Robert Goulston wrote in a statement that the department recognizes “the critical need for careful and sensitive balance between an individual’s privacy and public safety in general.”

He added that requests to view video recorded by the cameras, which counts as a public record under state law, would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis for the city to “evaluate whether the data should be withheld or redacted.”

The proposal comes amid concerns about public safety in Central Square, where robberies, overdoses, and assaults have all risen since 2018. Cambridge also saw two non-fatal shootings this year, though they both took place in parks outside of the city’s public squares.

But the prospect of increasing surveillance in Cambridge’s highly-trafficked areas could rekindle concerns from local activists who have lost trust in the CPD following the 2023 police killing of 20-year-old Sayed Faisal.

Dan Totten, a Cambridge activist and former City Council candidate who spoke against the proposal at Monday’s meeting, said he’s hesitant to embrace the additional cameras because it is “not clear what we’re actually trying to solve.”

“I know there’s been gun violence in the city, as there is almost every year,” Totten said in an interview. “Most of those incidents are happening, not in Central Square proper, and so to me, the city is sort of taking advantage of the fact that that has been happening and using it to implement these cameras.”

Totten added that he was worried about the cameras’ effect on Cambridge’s large unhoused population.

“My concern is that this will lead to deeper criminalization of people who are surrounding property in the squares, on the streets,” he said. The cameras are “being used to try to address some of the petty crimes at Target and Walgreens and stuff — is that we should be spending tax dollars on?”

Massachusetts Pirate Party Chairman James P. O’Keefe said his party reviewed studies of similar programs and has found them ineffective at stopping or prosecuting crime.

O’Keefe, who works in Cambridge, added that he believes cameras to be a “slippery slope” which could compromise an individual’s right to privacy in the city.

“What’s the cost to our society of having rampant, ubiquitous surveillance?” he said.

—Staff writer Sally E. Edwards can be reached at sally.edwards@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @sallyedwards04 or on Threads @sally_edwards06.

—Staff writer Avani B. Rai can be reached at avani.rai@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @avaniiiirai.