northern california regional intelligence center

The Police Accountability Board, or PAB, held a thorough discussion on security technology and the Berkeley Police Department’s proposed acquisition of Automated License Plate Readers, or ALPRs, during their July 12 meeting.

While the move was largely seen as preventing surveillance overreaches, internal city communications reveal that the city acquired facial recognition technology.

Amidst protest from a crowd packed into the Longfellow Middle School auditorium, Berkeley City Council voted Wednesday morning to continue participating in the controversial Urban Shield police training program.

At its regular meeting Tuesday, Berkeley City Council postponed its vote on the city’s continued participation in the contentious Urban Shield program.

Berkeley City Council convened Tuesday night to discuss a collection of police-related mutual aid agreements and the 2016 city crime report.

At its Tuesday meeting, Berkeley City Council will consider temporarily placing a nonvoting campus student on the council and will discuss the 2016 city crime report as well as city agreements with outside agencies, such as the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center.

For several weeks, PRC has discussed the importance of NCRIC, a government database known to collect license plate information and suspicious action reports, or SARs, and how often BPD actually employs the database — both of which still remain unclear to PRC. PRC invited the American Civil Liberties Union to its Wednesday meeting to resolve any questions the commission still had before next week’s City Council meeting.

The Police Review Commission discussed the upcoming Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC) renewal at its Wednesday meeting.

At its first meeting since July, the city’s Police Review Commission convened Wednesday night to deliberate the status of Berkeley Police Department’s mutual aid agreements and hear a report from the chief of police on crime data and department staffing.

Berkeley City Council approved a resolution Tuesday allowing Berkeley Police Department to continue participating in U.S. Department of Homeland Security initiatives, as part of a mutual aid agreement with local, state and federal law enforcement.