By Erica C. Barnett
As a new poll appeared to show strong support for police surveillance in Seattle neighborhoods, a group of police camera opponents said a visit to SPD’s surveillance headquarters raised more concerns about the security of Seattle’s surveillance footage and the potential for outside actors, such as ICE, to access and use the footage.
Mayor Katie Wilson paused expansion of the cameras, and turned off some cameras the city activated during the World Cup, until an outside consultant, NYU’s Policing Project, can complete a privacy and safety audit of the system. That review is supposed to be finalized next month.
The poll, released by Challenge Seattle—an alllance of 23 businesses started by former Gov. Chris Gregoire—and the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce, indicates overwhelming support for police camera surveillance across virtually every demographic group. But there are a couple of reasons to suspect that organic support for SPD cameras may be lower than the 75 percent topline Challenge Seattle and the Chamber are touting.
First, each of the three questions pollsters Fulcrum Strategy Group asked includes several positive claims about cameras, followed by a very brief description of opponents’ position.
For example, the question that yielded a 75 percent support rate was worded this way:
The Seattle Police Department sometimes uses cameras in designated public spaces after a 911 call to assist in an active investigation. These cameras do not use facial recognition technology or AI and are monitored by civilian employees, not police officers. Supporters of this policy say that it has helped catch suspects who have committed violent crimes and helps reduce crime rates. Opponents say that this kind of surveillance infringes on civil liberties and invades privacy. Knowing this, do you support or oppose allowing the use of cameras after a 911 call to assist in an active investigation?
Even with such a biased description of the cameras and SPD’s Real Time Crime Center (RTCC)—supporters who claim the cameras reduce crime are observing that crime went down over the past year and crediting cameras as the cause—just 45 percent of respondents said they strongly support the cameras, while another 30 percent said they “somewhat” supported them after “knowing” the information included in the question. The poll says 55 percent of people who self-identify as progressives also support the cameras, though the data they released doesn’t break down how much of that support is in the tentative “somewhat” category.
More telling, perhaps, is that another recent poll conducted by the same consultant, this one sponsored by the Chamber alone, found that support for cameras—as well as policies that restrict where people accused of misdemeanor drug crimes can go—was about the same in May as it was one year earlier.
In both 2025 and 2026, 51 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, “Recent laws like adding street cameras to help track crime and restricting people from returning to places where they’ve committed crimes are making Seattle safer and reducing crime.” Just 16 percent of those “strongly” agreed with this more neutrally worded statement. Meanwhile, 48 percent disagreed, up from 46 percent last year. With a 3.9 percent margin of error, that’s an even split.
Opponents of surveillance cameras have argued that if people knew more about how their information could be used—and SPD’s lack of direct authority over camera footage owned by its vendor, Axon—they would be less likely to support expanding the cameras into more and more parts of the city. On Monday, a group of advocates from the Community Not Cameras coalition toured the RTCC and, according to Transit Riders Union member Noah Williams, reached some “very scary” conclusions about who can access the footage and how well it’s protected from outside interference.
“When the SPD and the mayor’s office and city staff tell you that the footage lives on our servers until it is called up, that is true,” Williams said at a press conference immediately after the coalition RTCC visit. The problem, he continued, is that access to the system is managed by a cloud vendor controlled by Axon, a private company, which can access footage directly, stream it on their own cloud-based platform, and push software and configuration changes without telling SPD.
“And if they can do it, so can anyone who hacks them, and so can the federal government,” Williams said. “And the city will have no idea.” The system operates on a public-facing website that does not require a virtual private network (VPN) to access, Williams said, making it easier for hackers to “start trying to find vulnerabilities” in the system.
Phil Mocek, a privacy advocate with the coalition, said the visit made him more convinced that SPD has a “Swiss cheese” system with many open pathways for Axon—or Flock, should the two companies ever merge—to access footage and information from the RTCC’s surveillance cameras as well as automated license plate reader software. SPD halted its use of Axon’s ALPR system earlier this year, when legislators passed new restrictions on ALPR use, but coalition members who went on yesterday’s tour said they learned that the software can only be disabled by Axon.
After the RTCC visit, several of the anti-surveillance activists said Lee Hunt, one of the executive staffers to former police chief Shon Barnes who plans to leave the department next month, “blew up” at the group and “stormed out of the room” twice in response to their questions.
A spokesman for SPD confirmed that Axon is able to push updates to its software, but said “all new functions are supposed to remain ‘off’ by default.”
The spokesman said camera footage is “stored locally” and cited a policy that says Axon “shall notify SPD if the Contractor receives a warrant or subpoena seeking SPD data for any purpose, including purposes related to immigration status, reproductive healthcare, or gender affirming medical services, unless prohibited by operation of law in which case, the Contractor will notify SPD about the warrant or subpoena and action taken when that prohibition is lifted; and, the Contractor shall retain or use in-house legal counsel to object to any warrant or subpoena on the grounds that Contractor does not have possession, custody or control over SPD evidence.”
Fulcrum Strategy Group is a mercenary push pollster aiming to produce pre-determined outcomes disguised as public opinion. From the marketing materials on their website: “We review baseline assumptions, efforts underway, and start formulating ideas about how to reset what your audience feels, thinks, and knows (or what they think they know).”
Camera expansion is clearly beneficial for reducing criminal activities and arresting perpetrators. The expansion has been voted on and funding appropriated. Completing the expansion and turning on all of the cameras is a no-brainer.
You have no expectation of privacy in public. None of us do. You are being recorded from the minute you leave your home until the minute you return. Even then, most people have home security cameras of their own.
The Feds have no interest in using the video for immigration enforcement or to deny gender affirming care or abortions. That is laughable. And police officers who abuse database lookups can be dealt with administratively.
Expand the camera system and let’s move on to more important issues.
Yes, a bunch of loaded questions that invalidate the results. The pollsters should be embarrassed to call this ‘professional’ polling. It is political prostitution – give us money and we will get the poll result you want.
This loaded question would have yielded the opposite poll result: “If you knew SPD and SDOT traffic cameras were used by politicians to monitor journalists and critics, and by SPD personnel to monitor exes, spouses, and potential love interests, would you support expanding the cameras?” HELL NO, right?
The fact that ALL of the Trump-booster controlled local media (KOMO, KIRO, and now KING have been bought by companies controlled by billionaire Trump supporters) ran with this poll result on their front page tells us just how far gone these news editors actually are. No professional filter at all, just right-wing efforts to influence public opinion.
What a strange poll. The poll cited asks the question, “Are you confident that the mayor has an effective public safety plan?”. Clearly she has not published a public safety plan since she got into office (or we would have heard about it). The Bite of Seattle killings happened only 3 weeks ago, so we wouldn’t expect a new plan to be published since then. Whatever “public safety plan” existed would have been the existing policy that governs the police department, that was inherited from the previous administration. Public safety is the fundamental responsibility of the police department. The mayor’s job is to initiate change when there is a major failure. So, here we are.
I wonder how many will be affected? Many of these voters do not live in the areas they want cameras. Will never ever visit. They simply want to “watch those people”.