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Vallejo Police | Public safety cameras

Vallejo's camera policy requires every monitored public area to carry a sign saying so, records video without sound, and lets the chief forward live feeds to people who are not police. The number and location of cameras is not in the policy.

At a glance

Signage
All public areas monitored by the system shall be marked conspicuously with signs saying the area is under police surveillance [1]
Audio
The cameras record video only, not sound [1]
Who approves placement
The Chief of Police or a designee approves all proposed locations [1]
Where the feeds go
Monitors in the Watch Commander's office and the Communications Center [1]
Feeds to non-police
The chief may authorise feeds to be forwarded elsewhere for monitoring by others, such as allied government agencies, road or traffic crews, or fire and emergency personnel [1]
What the policy does not cover
Mobile audio and video systems, covert systems, and any other image-capturing device the department uses [1]
Number and location of cameras
not in any record we fetched
Retention of recordings
not stated in the sections of the policy we read [1]

How it happened

  1. Context

    Policy 341 published in the May 2024 manual

    The manual released on May 20, 2024 carries Policy 341, the public safety video surveillance system policy, including the signage requirement and the limits on what the policy covers. [1]

What the policy establishes

Policy 341 of Vallejo’s May 2024 manual governs the department’s public safety camera system. It carries a requirement that most camera policies leave out: “All public areas monitored by public safety surveillance equipment shall be marked in a conspicuous manner with appropriate signs to inform the public that the area is under police surveillance.”[1]

The cameras “shall only record video images and not sound”.[1] The chief or a designee approves all proposed locations, and images “should be transmitted to monitors installed in the Watch Commander’s office and the Communications Center”.[1] The Watch Commander or trained communications staff may adjust the cameras “to more effectively view a particular area for any legitimate public safety purpose”.[1]

The chief may also send the pictures further. The policy says the chief “may authorize video feeds from the public safety video surveillance system to be forwarded to a specified location for monitoring by other than police personnel, such as allied government agencies, road or traffic crews, or fire or emergency operations personnel”.[1]

What the policy does not cover

Its own scope section is narrow: it “only applies to overt, marked public safety video surveillance systems operated by the Department” and “does not apply to mobile audio/video systems, covert audio/video systems or any other image-capturing devices used by the Department”.[1] So the signage rule and the no-audio rule quoted above should be read as rules for this system, not as rules for every camera the department operates.

The policy states no camera count, no locations, and no retention period for recordings in the sections we read.

Where to ask

The signage requirement is checkable by anyone walking through a monitored area, and a camera without a sign is a specific, answerable question for the department or the council rather than a general complaint. A records request for the list of approved camera locations, the retention schedule for recordings, and any agreement under which a feed is forwarded outside the department would fill in the rest. Vallejo City Council meets in public and takes comment.

Questions

How would I know if a camera is watching a public space in Vallejo?
By a sign, if the policy is followed. It says all public areas monitored by the system "shall be marked in a conspicuous manner with appropriate signs to inform the public that the area is under police surveillance". That requirement applies to this system only. [1]
Do the cameras record what I say?
The policy says the cameras "shall only record video images and not sound". [1]
Who can watch the feed?
Images go to monitors in the Watch Commander's office and the Communications Center. The policy also lets the chief authorise feeds to be forwarded to another location for monitoring by people other than police, giving allied government agencies, road or traffic crews and fire or emergency personnel as examples. [1]
Does this policy cover every camera the department uses?
No, and it says so. Policy 341 applies only to overt, marked public safety cameras. It expressly does not apply to mobile audio and video systems, covert systems, or any other image-capturing device the department uses. Those sit under other policies. [1]

On the map

The community has mapped 8 devices of this type in the county on OpenStreetMap. These are community reports: the vendor and operator of each point are unverified, and none is confirmed to belong to this system. See them on the map →

Street names from reverse geocoding — © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

What we do not know

What you can do

Show up

Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have not yet confirmed where each of them meets in Solano County.

What we have documented in Solano County →

Protect yourself

Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.

Surveillance Self-Defense →

Sources

  1. 1.
    Vallejo Police Department Policy Manual, Policy 341, Public Safety Video Surveillance System (released 2024-05-20) · Primary document · · accessed · archived copy

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