Milwaukee police calling on residents, businesses to register security cameras with city

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Milwaukee Police announced Thursday they are participating in a program that seeks real-time access to private cameras, which owners can provide voluntarily. 

Police Chief Jeffrey Norman and Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson officially launched the 'Community Connect' program Thursday, although police said it has been underway in the city on a pilot basis.

Residents and businesses that own security cameras have two options with this program: they can register their camera, or they can integrate it.

Registering their cameras means MPD will know their location. If there is a crime or accident in that area, police will know they can go there and ask for the footage.

Johnson said, in addition to helping police solve crimes, knowing police readily have access to cameras throughout the city will cause would-be criminals to think twice before acting.

"I think it will act as a deterrent," Johnson said. "Because criminals will be less likely to act when they know someone is watching, when they know someone is paying attention."

Integrating involves the camera owner paying a private company, Fusus, to link real-time video with the MPD fusion center. 

Norman said the program is not an expansion of 'Big Brother' surveillance because it involves cameras that are already out there and participation is voluntary.

"This is not about over policing. This is not about using facial recognition or private cameras that have private spaces," Norman said. "It's about public-facing cameras being able to have that incorporated within our particular system voluntarily."

After the event, police officials told reporters they were modeling the city's program after what FUSUS has been doing in Atlanta.

FUSUS is currently operating in more than 200 U.S. cities and counties, according to officials in Kalamazoo, Michigan, who in June were pushing for the approval of a three-year contract with the firm.

After pushing back the vote, Kalamazoo's city commission eventually approved that contract.

The firm's sales director, Carlo Capano, said whether police could access real-time video from a private camera was entirely up to that camera's owner.

"They have complete control over what they are gonna be sharing with the police department and when they share that," Capano said.

The program applies to traditional security cameras; Capano said FUSUS does not have the ability to link with Ring cameras and other small-scale home security models.

Critics skeptical of the surveillance tool

Tim Muth, a staff attorney and interim legal director at the ACLU of Wisconsin, said he had concerns FUSUS could eventually expand the types of surveillance it helps police perform.

Currently, the firm boasts of its partnerships with companies that provide gunshot-tracking technology and the ability to read license plates.

While police say such streamlining is incredibly valuable, Muth said he was worried those partnerships would eventually branch into facial recognition. 

"Given the widely expanding use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement agencies, I guess I have real doubts that that will not be part of the system in the future," Muth said.

Muth noted the city council in Columbia, Missouri narrowly voted against adopted FUSUS camera linking last November. As of March, Columbia officials were still pushing the council to reconsider its vote.

When pressed about concerns police accessing real-time private camera footage was too invasive, even if the owners consented, Norman said the partnership between police and camera owners demonstrated there was no overreach.

"That's the point; it's voluntary," he said. "This is where we're talking about those that really want to be part of the solution about public safety."

Muth said he still believed there should have been greater public involvement in the process before MPD and Johnson announced the initiative.

"There needs to be a community debate, a city-wide debate over what level of surveillance we want our police department to be engaged in," Muth said.

What's the public cost? Hopefully nothing, police say

Norman and Johnson said private donations from the Milwaukee Police Foundation, Mill Valley Recycling, and business improvement districts, including the one representing the Third Ward, were covering the cost of launching the program.

However, MPD's chief of staff, Heather Hough, told reporters after the event there is an annual licensing fee Milwaukee would have to pay FUSUS. She said that licensing cost is about $125,000 per year. 

Hough said, in the years to come, MPD hopes to raise private money on an ongoing basis to pay those annual licensing fees.

Police did not respond to follow-up questions Thursday about whether there were any remaining startup costs the department must cover.