Privacy advocates are clashing with law enforcement in San Diego over the city’s network of modern streetlights, which like those in many cities are outfitted with environmental monitors, acoustic sensors and video cameras. While city officials say the streetlights feature many environmentally beneficial assets, religious and minority groups are concerned with their surveillance capabilities, while law enforcement says critics are just stoking fear based on misinformation.
The plan to deploy sensor-equipped streetlights throughout the city was approved in December 2016, and the city began deploying the packaged environmental, acoustic and optical sensors from General Electric, called CityIQ nodes, about a year later.
