{"id":288002,"date":"2026-07-10T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/10\/surveillance-technology-is-inevitable-or-is-it-the-mercury-news\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T12:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T16:00:18","slug":"surveillance-technology-is-inevitable-or-is-it-the-mercury-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/10\/surveillance-technology-is-inevitable-or-is-it-the-mercury-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Surveillance technology is inevitable. Or is it? \u2013 The Mercury News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surveillance technology is inevitable. Or is it? \u2013 The Mercury News<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/07\/10\/surveillance-technology-is-inevitable-or-is-it\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-07-10 11:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.mercurynews.com<\/a><\/p>\n

From doorbell cameras to automated license plate readers, the speed of adoption of surveillance technologies has inspired awe from law enforcement and angst from privacy advocates. But the embrace of these tools may be slowing in Silicon Valley, as the first to adopt may become the first to drop the technology.<\/p>\n

Bay Area municipalities, including Mountain View, Santa Clara County and El Cerrito have canceled or changed contracts and dropped automatic license plate readers that collect data in public space in response to the public\u2019s growing concerns about privacy as news reports of unmanaged data sharing and improper access to data pile up.<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0Alameda County extends Flock Safety contract amid worries over surveillance network<\/strong><\/p>\n

Supporters of the technology market it as innovative, invaluable and inevitable \u2014 a reputation that civil liberties attorneys, including Lisa Femia of the Electronic Freedom Foundation, question in court. The Electronic Freedom Foundation has filed lawsuits against the San Jose Police Department, in addition to the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, over a \u201cvast surveillance apparatus\u201d they say uses artificial intelligence to target individuals critical of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for clarity and space.<\/p>\n

Lisa Femia, a staff attorney at the Electronic Freedom Foundation in their office complex on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in San Francisco, Calif. (Aric Crabb\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Q: <\/strong>Surveillance technology, especially Flock Safety cameras, has proliferated since 2020. What are the forces that have facilitated the fast adoption of this tech?<\/p>\n

A. <\/strong>In 2020, we saw increased crime rates. One of the first things you see a lot of government officials turn to in times like that is more tools for law enforcement. I think that is part of it.<\/p>\n

I do think there is also aggressive marketing on the part of companies like Flock. We see them reaching out to local law enforcement, offering…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Surveillance technology is inevitable. Or is it? \u2013 The Mercury News https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/07\/10\/surveillance-technology-is-inevitable-or-is-it\/ Publish Date: 2026-07-10…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":288003,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/EBT-L-SVCHAT-XX-5.jpg?w=1024&h=703","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[57,85],"class_list":["post-288002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-security","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":288004,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288002\/revisions\/288004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}