I always assumed that traffic cameras were open to the public by design. Why should only the police have access to them if the cameras are public-facing, funded by the public, for the public?

Seattle has a nice page where you can visualize camera locations on a map and access live feeds:

https://web.seattle.gov/Travelers/

I think this is great. There is no expectation of privacy in public. If we're going to have cameras at all, I'd rather they be open to everyone, instead of being gatekept by a select few.

Some quantitative differences are so big that they are qualitative.

There is a qualitative difference between "You can walk around and people-watch with your own two eyes" and "You can collect data on thousands of people from all across any major city with thousands of machine eyes"

The law is simply out of date. There should be an expectation of privacy from surveillance.

It's one thing to have a camera giving an overview of a roadway. It's another to a camera that is reading license plates, that can be tied back to individuals. I'm not sure how much benefit the latter has to the public, but I do see how it could be harmful.

A collection of a lot of "public" information can become sensitive.

Anyone who's familiar with procurement: don't these systems require a security audit and such for them to become a government contractor? Seems like that wasn't ever done.

Definitely not your typical municipality. All they care about is the performance & payment bond and the certificate of insurance, generally speaking.

I’ve sold plenty of public construction work, possibly IT procurement is different?

If you’re really curious, public contract bid documents are generally available to the public, any security audit requirements would be detailed in the RFP specification.

Hahaha... no. Every municipality has different procedures and compliance guidelines for vendors, with most places just requiring you to have some sort of bond or insurance.

What a mess.