By Liz Steen

A string of public safety camera-related news last week sets up a tangled wrestling match among voters who want more public safety services, privacy advocates who’ve already pressured Renton to remove the cameras installed last year, city council members who want to turn on the cameras we paid for already, and the Seattle Mayor’s administration that’s waiting for a public safety study. 

West Seattle Has Been Here Before

In 2013, a Department of Homeland Security-funded program installed surveillance cameras in West Seattle that were never activated after technical problems and members of the public interfered. A $4.875 million federal port-security grant produced a network of cameras and wireless equipment along the waterfront in 2013. Problems with installation and oversight appeared before the project produced any help with crime.

Residents discovered cameras already installed before meaningful public vetting; two were mistakenly pointed toward apartments, and questions quickly spread from privacy to data access and the tracking capabilities of the accompanying wireless network. After public controversy, the cameras were never turned on, and Seattle finally removed the equipment five years later.

Renton’s recent experience with controversial Flock cameras—and a string of national scandals involving misuse by police and the private companies controlling the data—indicate Seattle could be looking at déjà vu all over again for the camera debate. Seattle’s history of spending millions for zero gains on this exact kind of project gives some pause. And with staffing shortages already affecting the police response, the city further appears to lack the infrastructure necessary to handle the cameras. Recent polling, however, suggests the public wants the city to try again.

Voters Want the Cameras On

According to some more conservative outlets, Seattle wants cameras, badly. Polling, news interviews, and public comment in city council meetings indicate voters are angry about crime and tired of waiting for basic services. In a Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce poll released last week, 75 percent of those who answered supported public CCTV cameras, 90 percent wanted increased police patrols in problem areas, and 86 percent wanted a public-safety action plan with measurable goals within 100 days. Only 34 percent expressed confidence that City leadership has an effective plan. It was unclear if the poll interviewed a neutral Last week, television cameras from more conservative outlets were following Mayor Katie Wilson around asking when she would turn the City's cameras back on.

West Seattle Wants More Public Safety as Complaints and Shootings Rise

The public safety debate took off this year, even before the Chamber of Commerce poll. West Seattle complaints have surged, including an approximate 300 percent increase in calls 2025 compared to 2023 as the City moves to open a new RV lot at Glassyard Commons, now delayed from June until fall. King County data indicates that West Seattle and South King County accounted for roughly 52% of all shootings in the county. Three West Seattle shootings in the past year—including 70 shots fired at Alki last week and a High Point homicide this month—have put West Seattle at the center of the public-safety debate. An amendment from West Seattle’s Rob Saka put Alki Harbor on the list for a police department study on deploying the cameras at some point in the future.

Mayor Wilson Says: Not Yet

Wilson isn't budging on the cameras, however, at least not yet. She told KOMO’s Chris Daniels on Friday that, as her office announced last month, she won’t decide on the cameras until after a privacy and data-security audit expected next month. The audit is conducted by the New York University School of Law Policing Project. During the review, cameras in downtown, along Aurora Avenue, and in the International District will remain on. Stadium District cameras were turned off in July, and will remain off until the audit is complete. No new police CCTV camera will be turned on until the study is finished.   

The camera companies including Flock, in Renton, and Axon in Seattle, promised cities that use their product cheap, reliable surveillance that could help an understaffed police force do more with less. Renton’s experience and spate of negative news stories nationwide show it’s more complicated. Somebody still has to secure the data, police its use, investigate abuse, maintain the system and pay when things go wrong. And increasingly, the person holding the data isn't the city. It's a private technology company.

Renton Already Learned the Hard Way

Like West Seattle in 2013, Renton offers a very similar, but more recent cautionary tale. Its experience with Flock's automated license-plate readers produced a fight over privacy, access and control serious enough that the city stopped using the system and eventually covered the cameras. Renton turned off the cameras and then covered them with bags last month, causing confusion over whether the city actually controls the cameras once installed, or if the bags were more of a gesture to show the city doesn’t intend to use the cameras.

Including Renton, at least 56 American cities have rejected or canceled Flock contracts this year amid a national backlash over data sharing and misuse. Last week, twenty-two citizens in Renton’s city council meeting brought up problems with the cameras, including  a Washington Post investigation where reporters found dozens of police officers accused of turning Flock and similar license-plate readers into personal surveillance systems—tracking wives, girlfriends and exes. In one case, a police chief allegedly searched the plates of his former girlfriend and her teenage daughter roughly 600 times. Twenty-two speakers on one City Council agenda item is often an early warning of litigation, as individual complaints have become collective action.

When Surveillance Goes Wrong, Seattle Pays Millions

People who get mad, sue. Lawsuits already cost the city millions every year in liability insurance, deductibles, and payouts. In 2022, the most recent report available, the city’s Judgment and Claims Fund spent $43.8 million—$26 million on settlements and judgments and another $17.8 million on claims and litigation expenses. The City also would have to pay the first $10 million of covered losses before excess liability insurance kicks in. Seattle is already paying for litigation stemming from former Mayor Jenny Durkan’s administration public records practices, leaving today’s taxpayers with yesterday’s legal bills. Camera data would be considered a public record, meaning the city has to turn it over for any citizen who requests, causing further expenses for compliance if the data is difficult to gather from private companies.

Once the cameras are  turned on, the City has to retain all the data, secure it, audit who accesses it, and produce it when required by courts or public-records laws. That gets harder when the records sit inside systems controlled by a private vendor, particularly when those private camera vendors are already under fire for failing at each and every one of these steps.

The City Doesn’t Own the Camera Data That They’re Required to Maintain.

Seattle uses a different system than Flock, supplied by Axon. But that doesn't solve the underlying problem and expense of the city of Seattle being responsible to maintain data that the city doesn’t actually control.

Privacy advocates who recently toured Seattle's Real-Time Crime Center on the same day the Chamber of Commerce released its pro-camera poll pushed back against the more conservative outlets pushing the cameras. They say access to parts of the camera’s security system is controlled through Axon's cloud infrastructure, raising questions about what the vendor can access, who can change the system, and how the City would know if something went wrong. This gap between what the city has, what the city has to turn over to anyone who asks, and what the city has to protect from misuse, appears to be the infrastructure problem Wilson says she wants answered before expanding surveillance. Wilson has held out against pressure since March. She says the cameras stay off until the audit arrives at the end of September.

The Council helped buy the cameras and has spent months asking Wilson to turn them on. Less visible is the unglamorous part of ownership: building the oversight, auditing and complaint system required to avoid expensive lawsuits and further problems.

Here’s the link to King County gun violence data: King County gun violence data - King County, Washington

Here’s the link to a gun violence map: Gun Violence Map: How Many People Have Been Shot Near You?

Heres’ the Westside Seattle Crime Report with a interactive feature:

Westside Seattle Crime Report | Westside Seattle

Learn how the Prosecuting Attorney's Office Crime Strategies Unit takes a public health approach to understanding gun violence in King County and shares Shots Fired reports.

Liz Steen is an attorney and contributing writer and lives in West Seattle.