BART’s board is hoping to enhance safety for BART passengers by approving a new surveillance ordinance to prevent their passengers’ private information from ending up in the hands of federal law enforcement agencies.

In its ongoing quest to increase public safety, BART’s board of directors passed Phase 1 of an ordinance that will regulate the procurement and usage of any surveillance systems used on BART property.

“Here is the deal. When any transit or public entity introduces any kind of policy or ordinance that could suggest that we could potentially violate the liberty of people, it should be scrutinized and folks should be scared,” BART board member Lateefah Simon said.

Simon says there was some concern last year when the prior administration of the BART Police Department installed a license plate reader in a BART parking lot without seeking the board’s approval. BART police then shared that information with the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, a state government agency that shares information with other law enforcement agencies. At the time, there was concern that the Department of Homeland Security and ICE agents had access to data shared by BART police.

Chief Carlos Rojas says is not the case

“I absolutely have no information that there was no license plate data shared with Homeland Security or with ICE, and I texted with the Director of NCRIC this morning, and he told me that they do not have an information sharing agreement with ICE and never have had one,” Rojas said.

In light of the incident, Chief Rojas says he is on board with the new surveillance ordinance.

“What that allows us to do is have more accountability and transparency with our community and really let them know when we are going to use certain surveillance technology and report to the board and the community that the technology is being used,” Rojas said.

The ordinance will also take repercussions of any privacy violations out of the hands of the board and place it in the hands of a judge in court.

“This institution must have policy in place to make sure that surveillance is lawful,” Simon said.

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