Police used &8216;smart streetlights&8217; to surveil protesters, just as privacy groups warned

Well, we can't say we weren't warned.

San Diego police have turned a technology pitched on the promise of reducing traffic fatalities and   tracking carbon emissions into a tool to surveil protesters. And yes, legal and tech experts saw this coming years ago. 

In the midst of ongoing Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests following the killing of George Floyd, San Diego police looked to an unexpected source to gather surveillance footage: the 3,200 so-called smart streetlights installed across the city beginning in 2017. So reports Voice of San Diego, which, through public records requests, determined that in late May and early June the network of smart streetlights was accessed at least 35 times. Read more...