Amid growing criticisms of the City of Syracuse’s various surveillance technologies, Mayor Sharon Owens plans to bolster her administration’s oversight of those powerful tools — and the companies providing them. Owens in an interview with Central Current outlined ideas for greater regulati on of Syracuse’s use of technology, as the city continues integrating modern systems which often collect and store large sets of personal data points on city residents. The mayor’s addition of new guardrails to protect city residents from the unintended consequences of using these technologies comes after a series of investigative reports by Central Current outlining the misuse of surveillance measures and procedures in the past two years. Under Mayor Ben Walsh, SPD frequently shirked some of the baseline conditions the department pledged to fulfill when requesting powerful technology tools. Some of those shortcomings — like neglecting to post policies, annual reports and audits to the department’s website — are administrative. For over a year, Central Current has repeatedly asked SPD why it has not posted that and other information, but the department has not responded to those inquiries. Other failures had wider-reaching impacts, like exposing sensitive data to immigration agents, and allowing a company to harvest the city’s data for its own use. Owens’ believes her reforms would help the city enforce transparency and accountability measures — which the police department has more often than not left unmet. The first proposal described by the mayor is the creation of a Chief Technology officer role, which Owens believes is necessary to centralize oversight across various departments each using disparate technology. “This person has that oversight of those digital services, looking at cyber security, looking at every aspect of how we use infrastructure and data and innovation wisely,” Owens said. The mayor also wants to reform the city’s existing approaches to vetting and consistently overseeing the city’s ever-growing use of technology. To do so, Owens will draw on her years of experience reviewing powerful technologies before they go online in City Hall, police headquarters or on the streets of Syracuse. Owens spent years as a sitting member on Walsh’s Surveillance Technology Working Group. That standing oversight body reviews powerful, cutting-edge technologies before issuing recommendations for regulations guiding the use of a given surveillance tool. The mayor is also designating Jason Thomas, the city’s Director of Analytics and Data Management, as the chair of the technology working group.  Owens said she will also speak to Common Council President Rita Paniagua about whether common councilors should have more of a presence on that review body — as voting members or non-voting attendees — so that councilors are better prepared to fairly evaluate their vote once a technology comes before the common council for approval. Walsh in September appointed Councilor Jimmy Monto to the group, Monto said, but it remains unclear if Owens wants to expand council representation. Owens said there aren’t any new technologies expected to come through the surveillance technology review process in the near future, but the city’s use of technology appears to be a central concern for Owens as she charts out her first year in the Syracuse mayor’s office. The group on Wednesday night held its first meeting of the year. “There is a benefit and a cautionary tale to everything we review,” Owens said. The city’s rocky experience contracting with Flock Safety for license plate readers punctuated Owens’ point.  The Syracuse Police Department’s AI-powered scanners have helped solve homicides, such as a 2025 murder on Westmoreland Avenue, Owens said. But, as the mayor acknowledged, the department’s use of those tools also led to federal immigration agents accessing sensitive data on Syracuse drivers’ movements.  Through minute contract terms, Flock also earned perpetual right to use Syracuse’s data, which Flock says it anonymizes, for the company’s own purposes — contract terms the Surveillance Technology Working Group explicitly warned against. Owens said she plans to speak with corporation counsel and lawmakers to equip the law department with the tools necessary to greater scrutinize the fine print of contracts like Flock’s.  The city’s corporation counsel is also designating one attorney to focus on tracking federal executive orders and their ramifications on the city, including potential consequences for police technology the city already uses. “That’s the one thing about me. I just want to be honest about stuff. That’s when we got tripped up: not catching that fine-tuned information about data sharing with Flock,” Owens said. As the mayor seeks to wrangle the city’s technology, some of her peers in the common council are working on reforms of their own. In the wake of Central Current’s series of investigative reports revealing the reality of Flock’s relationship to Syracuse, Monto and Councilor Corey Williams initiated the process of removing the company’s cameras from Syracuse’s streets. The councilors have introduced a series of legislative items to block Flock, beginning with a revocation of authorization for the company to install two readers on city property as part of a fledgling program with Syracuse University.The council unanimously approved that measure, and on Monday, approved 7-1 a vote to revoke authorization to maintain a reader on city property through an agreement with the Town of Dewitt. Monto has introduced legislation to revoke Flock’s privileges to maintain and operate the 13 readers it currently has throughout Syracuse. Even if that revocation passes, Flock scanners will remain at Syracuse University and Destiny USA, which each have their own Flock contracts. Monto and Councilor Donna Moore, the chair of the council’s public safety committee, are holding that legislation from a vote until the Syracuse Police Department presents the council with a contract between the city and Flock’s rival, Axon Enterprise.  The police department hopes to shift vendors without a gap in service. “Axon is a company that we know that we have been in a relationship with,” Owens said. “They provide the same technology, and so here we are now in a position where we’re looking at that.” The city relies on Axon for a variety of other police tools, including Tasers, body-worn cameras, and SWAT drones. The Syracuse Police Department has also been trying for over a year to get council approval to purchase necessary Axon software to operate the department’s already-purchased Axon “Drone as First Responder” drones.  In Central Current’s general mayoral debate, Owens endorsed the department using those drones in “very targeted” instances — but rejected the police department’s proposal to use the drones for any and all 911 calls, saying, “they should not be used at the discretion of the department.” Owens said the first responder drone program will not be approved until the city has a clear policy governing the police department’s use of those self-piloting drones.  Recognizing the potential for invasive uses of those drones, Owens compared the conflict between privacy concerns and public safety advantages to similar costs and benefits posed by license plate readers. “My husband is first in line to say, ‘are they reading my license plate every time I get off and on 690?’ It’s a Catch-22,” Owens said of surveillance technology. “I’m not anti-drone — I’m pro-‘what’s the policy for drone uses?’” The post How Mayor Sharon Owens plans to wrangle oversight of the surveillance technology her administration inherited appeared first on Central Current. ...read more read less