Seattle will expand its police surveillance camera network to three more neighborhoods, Mayor Katie Wilson said Tuesday, ending a pause she put in place in March over privacy and civil liberties concerns.
The move comes a day after NYU’s Policing Project released an independent audit of the Seattle Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center (RTCC), which Wilson commissioned during the pause. The audit found the city had built “an important foundation” for overseeing the system but that “significant policy gaps remain.” It made 19 recommendations.
Cameras in the Stadium District, installed before this summer’s FIFA World Cup, will be turned on immediately, according to the mayor’s office. Cameras around Garfield High School and in the Capitol Hill nightlife district still need to be bought and installed, which will take months. The City Council approved all three areas in 2025.
Wilson briefly turned on the 22 stadium-area cameras during the World Cup, citing “credible threats” reported by law enforcement, and said they would go off after the tournament. The audit noted that police streamed live feeds throughout the event, despite a department policy against monitoring cameras without an active call or case.
“After reviewing the evidence, the recommendations, and the safeguards available to us, I believe there is an important and responsible role for the RTCC within Seattle’s public-safety system,” Wilson said in a statement.
Wilson said the city will adopt most of the audit’s recommendations. The police department will publish a public dashboard on how the crime center is used and tighten its rules on data retention, permissible uses and requests from outside agencies. A new advisory group will help write policies for privately owned cameras, protests and where future cameras go.
The Real Time Crime Center, which launched in 2025, pulls live video from hundreds of cameras into a single command room at police headquarters. They include 303 police-owned cameras at 61 sites, 116 security cameras at police buildings, 96 city traffic cameras, and 23 cameras owned by three local businesses that share their feeds with police.
Analysts watch 911 calls as they come in and pull up nearby cameras to give officers details callers may have missed, such as what a suspect is wearing or which way they ran. They also comb through recorded footage to help detectives investigate past crimes. The system runs on Fusus, software from Axon, the Arizona-based maker of police body cameras and Tasers.
Police are barred from using facial recognition with the system. The software does include an AI tool that searches video for people, vehicles and other objects, but analysts told auditors they use it only as a last resort because it is unreliable. In one case, a search for a man in a gray top and gray pants returned an image of a pigeon.
Whether the system reduces crime remains an open question. The Seattle Police Department has said officers and detectives are three times more likely to make an arrest with help from crime center analysts, and that the center assisted in 17 homicide cases in 2025, helping close 10. But the audit notes that the department counts any analyst action as “support,” such as checking a camera, even if it produced nothing useful.
Broader research on crime centers is thin, the audit found, and studies of surveillance cameras on their own show mixed results. A University of Pennsylvania evaluation of Seattle’s program, commissioned by the city’s inspector general, isn’t expected until late 2027.
Critics have warned that footage could end up with federal immigration agents or out-of-state prosecutors pursuing people who come to Washington for abortions or gender-affirming care. The audit found that state and city laws limit such sharing, but they can’t fully prevent it. Outside agencies could still get footage through public records requests or court orders served on the city or on Axon, which stores some of the police department’s video in its cloud.
Tee Sannon, technology policy program director for the ACLU of Washington, said the group was “deeply disappointed” by the decision. With the audit having “reaffirmed significant gaps in privacy protections and accountability,” expanding the network “is a step in the wrong direction,” Sannon said. She added that the city should invest in proven alternatives such as community violence prevention programs.
“Used together, CCTV and RTCC supercharge law enforcement’s capabilities to monitor, track, and reconstruct people’s movements across the city,” Sannon said. Protecting residents, she said, requires strict, enforceable limits on how the technology is used, how long data is kept and who it’s shared with, along with independent oversight.
Wilson said the expansion and the new safeguards go together. “We can gather evidence to hold those who commit violent acts accountable and protect our neighbors targeted by federal overreach,” she said.
Business groups praised the decision. Jon Scholes, president and CEO of the Downtown Seattle Association, said the city “already has stringent privacy guardrails in place” and that, with police staffing “still lagging,” additional tools “are essential for solving crimes.” The Seattle Metro Chamber and Challenge Seattle, which have pushed the city to turn on the cameras, cited a poll they commissioned this year that found 75% of Seattle voters support using cameras to help active investigations.
“Residents and businesses have sent a clear message: they want our officers to have the tools to keep them safe,” said former Gov. Chris Gregoire, CEO of Challenge Seattle.
City Councilmember Bob Kettle, who chairs the council’s public safety committee, said the committee will take up the audit’s recommendations, along with those from the city’s inspector general and auditor.
The city also plans to lay groundwork for connecting cameras run by Seattle Center tenants and nearby businesses to the crime center, according to the mayor’s office, citing interest from those businesses after the Bite of Seattle shooting in July. The audit flagged private camera integration as a key area to watch: the police department has bought about 100 devices that let businesses stream video to the center but hasn’t decided who will get them.
The advisory group, which will include members of the Community Police Commission, the Community Surveillance Working Group, police and other city staff, will meet over the next few months. Its recommendations will then go through the police department’s policy review process.
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