Home Economy Government ACLU urges college leaders to deny city’s request to link surveillance feeds

ACLU urges college leaders to deny city’s request to link surveillance feeds

By

Christopher Allen

-

02/05/2026

THE ACLU OF RI IS ASKING BROWN UNIVERSITY AND OTHER HIGHER-ED institutions to reject camera sharing with Providence’s real time crime center.

PROVIDENCE – The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island Inc. on Wednesday urged leaders at the six colleges with campuses in Providence to refuse a request to share campus surveillance camera feeds with the city’s centralized Real Time Crime Center. In a letter to Brown University President Christina Paxson, the organization said that sharing

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PROVIDENCE – The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island Inc. on Wednesday urged leaders at the six colleges with campuses in Providence to refuse a request to share campus surveillance camera feeds with the city’s centralized Real Time Crime Center. In a letter to Brown University President Christina Paxson, the organization said that sharing such surveillance footage could jeopardize the safety and rights of students, faculty and visitors, or be used to monitor free speech activities on campus, putting students at risk of being targeted by authorities. The request to join the voluntary system was made by the administration of Mayor Brett P. Smiley after the Dec. 13 mass shooting on the Brown University campus that killed two students. "While we are, of course, sympathetic to promoting safety initiatives following the recent tragedy at Brown University, we urge you to avoid a hasty reaction to the city’s request in light of the serious privacy concerns," they wrote. Letters were also sent to the Community College of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College, RISD, Roger Williams University and the University of Rhode Island. Launched in August and funded by a $1 million federal earmark secured by U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, the RTCC is located within the Investigative Bureau’s Major Crimes Unit at the Providence Safety Complex. The system integrates multiple sources of data, including license plate readers, 911 call data and private and public security cameras that opt-in. The Providence City Council in October 2025 approved amendments to the city’s Community-Police Relationship Act, which partially restricts the use of RTCC data for federal immigration enforcement. But the ACLU is calling for clearer and stricter privacy policies that govern its use in the future. While an "important step in reining in some of the RTCC’s Orwellian possibilities," the ACLU said of the amendments, surveillance footage obtained and maintained by the RTCC could still be open to judicial subpoenas. “History teaches that surveillance tools inevitably engage in mission creep, expanding their role well beyond their initial intent,” they wrote. Christopher Allen is a PBN staff writer. You may contact him at Allen@PBN.com.