Column: Oversight of police technology in Bend
Column: Oversight of police technology in Bend
https://bendbulletin.com/2026/06/14/column-oversight-of-police-technology-in-bend/
Publish Date: 2026-06-14 09:01:00
Source Domain: bendbulletin.com
Column: Oversight of police technology in Bend
Published 6:00 am Sunday, June 14, 2026
It was a summer night in Bend many years ago. My car was stolen.
I didn’t hear the window breaking or the car start. I looked out the next morning and it was gone. There was broken glass on the street.
Bend police politely took down my report. I never saw the car again.
Maybe that would be different today. Bend police and other departments have cameras and software that automatically run license plate numbers. They check for plate numbers associated with a crime or match vehicles of missing persons.
The proliferation of police cameras comes with some of the optics of a surveillance state. The cameras can be a powerful crime fighter without anything approaching autocratic aspirations. And yet it’s no wonder why speaker after speaker went before the Bend City Council recently, asking the city to pass an ordinance with more public oversight of technology’s eyes.
Watching people is no longer limited by needing people to do the watching. It’s automated. Your phone is watching you. Doorbell cameras are watching. Website visits are tracked. There are cameras along the roads. Who knows what AI is capable of plugged into all those inputs.
Bend police have more cameras than the license plate readers in vehicles or their body-worn cameras. There’s a program for businesses and individuals to register private security cameras with the police for possible sharing of images. Tickets are now being issued based on data from new red light/speeding cameras at a few intersections in town. Drones can be remotely launched to provide response to ongoing incidents. And the Bend police used to have fixed license plate readers at four locations in Bend through the vendor Flock.
The fixed, Flock-branded cameras got the most attention.
Federal agents…
