The University of Utah surveillance policy is found under Policy 3-234: Building Access and Surveillance Systems. It was last revised March 12, 2019. The document will be linked below.
Provisions of the Surveillance Policy
The purpose of the U of U surveillance policy is to “ … regulate the installation and maintenance of … area surveillance systems in buildings and outdoor areas owned or controlled by the University of Utah, and regulate the collection, storage, disposal, access, and use of surveillance data from those systems.” This policy is overseen by the Surveillance System Administrators Committee, or SSAC, which is composed of representatives of some of the numerous branches that constitute the managing body at the U.
In Section 3C1 of the policy, the U clearly defines itself as committed to the privacy of those on campus grounds, stating, “... it is a fundamental principle that the University recognizes and respects the rights of privacy of individual persons who enter various areas of the University campus to participate in University activities…” It then defines itself as also committed to the safety of those same persons, “It is also fundamental that the University seeks to ensure for all such persons a campus environment that is safe from criminal activity and other causes of harm …” Therefore, the University of Utah sets up the dichotomy between safety and privacy, and commits to find the balance between the two. As a final note of this section, the U declares that all surveillance data gathered by the University is held as the sole property of the University, and not that of any contractor or employee.
The policy declares specific rules for the collection of surveillance data. Unless exigent circumstances exists, all surveillance devices must have appropriate notice of their use, cannot be used in private areas (including restrooms, showers, individual offices of faculty members, and more), and cannot record audio if that audio is capable of recording “discernable human voices.” Furthermore, the policy states that “The University may ordinarily access and use surveillance data only for the limited purposes of deterring, detecting, or investigating criminal activity…” Any exception to this must be approved by SSAC, and the surveillance data is limited to only what is pertinent to the investigation in the exceptive case and only for a “reasonable” time. The few instances in which this is possible is where one has reason to believe that serious harm has happened to an individual, where an employee may be leaving their patient to harm, and where employee location must be tracked in regards to sensitive information.
The policy states that footage will only be retained on a secured server for a time declared by the SSAC in a University Procedure, and after that time the data shall be erased. The data may be transferred to local, state, and federal law services pursuant to a warrant or other law, or Utah’s GRAMA law.
Privacy Issues Found within the Policy
There are several notable privacy issues contained within the policy. These issues fall under the themes of use of facial recognition and access to footage.
Firstly, facial recognition is mentioned only once throughout the Policy. “The University will not use facial recognition computer software or equivalent information technology to process video surveillance data to track the presence at a campus location of a particular person for any purpose other than addressing criminal activity which presents a substantial risk of serious harm to the University or an individual,” which implies that the U is capable of the use of facial recognition technology for tracking, and leaves the definition of what constitutes its use slightly subjective.
Secondly, ‘surveillance system operators’ can be instituted by any Department Head or higher, regardless of membership of SSAC. The policy is vague on the power and capabilities of these ‘surveillance system operators’ as it gives no definition to their role. The policy does further state that, “Access to surveillance data shall be granted only to University employees so authorized by the SSAC, and only for purposes approved in accord with this Policy.” It is unclear whether that provision applies to these ‘surveillance system operators’, which seem as though they would be redundant should there not be reason to be consistently monitoring a surveillance system on campus.
The Balance Between Privacy and Safety
Personally, I believe that the University of Utah has struck an amazing balance between privacy and safety. A large amount of personal privacy rights are reserved, while extremes may be taken when the safety of an individual is in question.
For instance, the U cannot, per the policy, record audio in which a human voice is discernible. This greatly protects freedom of speech on the campus, as well as possibly preventing biases through discrimination on voice, should footage ever be reviewed. Furthermore, it is unlikely that facial recognition should ever be used in University surveillance. Although it is defined in subjective terms, the example given within the policy is that of “a credible threat of a terrorist attack,” so it is unlikely that one should ever have that policy leveraged against them. Moreso, the University protects the individual at the same time, as it is permissible for cameras to be swept in order to find someone who is believed to be at harm, or to review instances in which someone may be discriminating against another through writing or imagery.
What is your opinion on this balance?
Source
Policy 3-234: Building Access and Surveillance Systems. Policy-3-234: Building Access and Surveillance Systems - Regulations Library - The University of Utah. (n.d.). Retrieved March 24, 2023, from https://regulations.utah.edu/administration/3-234.php
I agree that the U's policy seems to do a good job balancing privacy and security. What stood out the most to me in this post was the caveat that audio cannot record "discernable human voices." This left me wondering about audio that does not pick up on human voices, if that is such a thing. Nate also mentioned discrimination based on voice which I have never heard of before. I would be interested to know more if there is a precedent for that.
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DeleteJust a guess, but I think audio that doesn't have discernable human voices is probably from mics that aren't good enough to pick up an ordinary conversation or things of similar volume very well. So for example, in a crowded area, it could be that you hear all the chattering, but you can't hear any specific voice. Or maybe it's not crowded and there are only a few people speaking, but the volume of a normal speaking voice isn't loud enough to be picked up by the mic. Again, just guessing here.
DeleteI do think that may be a cause for concern, when picking up voices, but I do think there is technology out there that can distinguish voices even in a crowd. In China for example, the CCP monitor's is citizens through highly advanced facial recognition and voice recognition technology.,
DeleteWhen I said discrimination by voice, I more specifically meant discrimination based on accent or sex. When reading the policy, I did not find any further definition of "discernable human voices" but personally I believe that implies being able to distinguish specific words from individuals, effectively banning the recording of audio from cameras.
DeleteYour reading of the policy is correct, Nate. Audio recording is banned.
DeleteNice post! I think the U has done a good job with finding a balance between privacy and safety, though, as you've noted, there is some vagueness in the policies that should be made clearer. I'm glad to see that the U is pretty transparent through giving notices on how they are using surveillance, and they have both people's privacies and safeties in mind when implementing these policies.
ReplyDeleteVery true. I think because of the institution that they are today, they are liable for virtually any behavior they capture or monitor, so transparency with the public, and in working with law enforcement is key to minimizing any legal and financial ramifications that come with surveillance.
DeleteFor a campus, that hosts thousands of students daily in their classrooms and in their buildings, I do think this is a relatively good approach towards addressing privacy concerns while maintain safety. I do believe that often, especially with surveillance, it is hard to know what is ethical, and what encroaches on not being ethical, when certain capture methods are used, such as facial recognition. I think that due to the environment on campus, less safety measures are needed via surveillance, because of campus security and police. Moving forward however, I do think in public spaces, it would be best if there were actually audio recordings captured, even if it mean capturing specific voices, in the chance the OEO office files a discrimination report, but cannot investigate the matter.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting Nate! I was surprised by the University of Utah's balanced approach to privacy and safety. Truthfully, I had expected to be more critical of it. I'd be interested to know a bit more about the tracking of criminal activity and what actions trigger tracking.
ReplyDeleteBalance is everything when is comes to safety and security. The university of Utah does a great job balancing privacy and safety. Maybe they could do a better job with explaining their polices a bit more clearly. However when you compare to other security systems they take more information from you and use them.
ReplyDeleteIm pleasantly surprised by most of the policy and think that they reached a pretty good balance. I do think that it seems a little contradictory to say that the footage is solely the property of the university and then to allow for area heads to grant access to it, it seems like the university would have a higher interest in protecting it, but overall I think that there is a good balance in the policy.
ReplyDeleteWorking in a couple of roles in University Housing, I also find it as a pleasant surprise like many of the others that they have a pretty good policy in place. Although interpersonal privacy might be lacking in some areas, I do think that they have a pretty good handle on digital privacy regulations. There's definitely a need for campus surveillance as a security protection, but I think their boundaries of the audio and storage system does balance it out really well.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this seems like a good policy. I do think that there is a good balance between privacy and safety because there are many rules in place to protect privacy, such as not recording in private places or recording audio, but there are exceptions for extreme cases. I appreciate that while there is surveillance, people have to be notified.
ReplyDeleteThis policy is actually surprisingly comprehensive. As many others have noticed the banning of audio recordings if the recordings are of a high enough quality to "capture discernible human voices" is actually quite nice, and something I hadn't really thought about before. I sort of took it as a given that cameras would capture audio.
ReplyDeleteThe policy on facial recognition technology seems vague on how it might be helpful. It does allow the use of the technology in the case of threats to safety but what specific situations the use cases include seems broad. What measures are in place to make sure that use of this technology follows the University policy and is in necessary for campus safety?
ReplyDeleteGreat job in formulating the great policies on campus professor! I think the policies are comprehensive in protecting privacy rights and concerns. I think the discussion of allowing audio recordings in conjunction with security cameras is very interesting and I tend to believe that public safety is more important than privacy in some instances, so I would opt for audio as well.
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