ACLU-NC Letter Highlights Privacy Concerns in Proposed Rules for SF Events

Yesterday we sent a letter to the San Francisco Entertainment Commission highlighting our concerns with proposed new rules for bars, clubs, and other venues that host various forms of live entertainment. The new rules would require the venue to use ID scanners and video cameras to monitor every performer and attendee. In doing so, they would constitute a massive invasion of the privacy rights that Californians expect and deserve.

The Commission's proposed rules would require most venues that provide live entertainment (from plays and concerts to poetry readings) to set up ID scanners and video surveillance to track everyone attending the event. In addition, the venue would be required to keep a database of ID scans and video surveillance for at least 15 days and provide all captured images and records to the police upon request, with no requirement that the police show any legitimate need to obtain the information. Finally, the rules place no limits on the protection or use of this collected information by either police officials or the venues themselves. In total, this would create a massive database of largely unregulated personal information that could be abused in numerous ways, which is inconsistent with the constitutional guarantees of privacy and free speech that protect all Californians.

As our statement concludes:

Nearly four decades ago the People of this state overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment to include an express protection for privacy. As our supreme court has held, this amendment was intended to guard against a wide range of threats to our privacy, including "government snooping and the secret gathering of personal information," "the overbroad collection and retention of unnecessary personal information by government and business interests," and "the improper use of information properly obtained for a specific purpose, for example, the use of it for another purpose or the disclosure of it to some third party." Yet the proposed rules appear to allow all of these. We strongly urge the Commission to take a close look and consider whether these rules are necessary and justified in intruding upon the constitutional privacy and free speech protections of Californians.

We hope you will join us in urging the Entertainment Commission to reject the privacy-invading elements of this proposal.