Oakland neighbors increasingly use surveillance for security Neighborhood groups film every visitor - just in case

Jesper Jurcenoks uses an iPad to check the surveillance system in his Oakland hills neighborhood. "We will not a let a criminal enter or leave our neighborhood undetected," Jurcenoks, founder of the nonprofit Neighborhood Guard, says of the surveillance system. less Jesper Jurcenoks uses an iPad to check the surveillance system in his Oakland hills neighborhood. "We will not a let a criminal enter or leave our neighborhood undetected," Jurcenoks, founder of the nonprofit ... more Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Oakland neighbors increasingly use surveillance for security 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

The motion-activated surveillance camera outside Jesper Jurcenoks' home in the Oakland hills takes some 12,000 pictures a day.

Every car, motorcycle, delivery truck, police car, bicyclist, pedestrian and deer that enters his isolated street off Skyline Boulevard gets photographed. Four times a second. Day and night. When they arrive and when they leave, time-stamped and stored on a server for 60 days.

The two cameras, one at each entrance of Jurcenoks' looping street, form a virtual wall around the neighborhood, he said.

For years, Oakland residents have built fences or installed security cameras on their homes because they were fed up with burglaries and auto break-ins. Some neighborhoods hired private security guards to patrol their streets. Now they're becoming more aggressive in their efforts to fight back.

In growing numbers, residents are forming neighborhood groups and spending thousands of dollars on cameras that can monitor the perimeter of entire blocks.

They don't merely want to protect their homes. They want to catch anyone intent on criminal behavior.

"We will not a let a criminal enter or leave our neighborhood undetected," Jurcenoks said. "We're not saying we can stop the crime. We want to make sure we have a photograph."

Trying to avoid abuse

Seven areas across the city have signed up for a neighborhood-wide surveillance system, and dozens more are interested, said Jurcenoks, the founder of Neighborhood Guard, a nonprofit that helps owners set up and install such systems. He installed his neighborhood's system in 2012, costing the neighborhood association $2,000 for each camera, a $1,500 one-time fee and $100 a year to continue using the service. He said the two cameras cover 88 homes. Smaller neighborhoods pay less money.

"The trick is that you're not putting one on every house," said Jurcenoks, who puts them at the street entrances to neighborhoods. Although no one in the neighborhoods has picked a fight about a lack of privacy, digital snooping or even the potential for neighborhood gossip, those using the security cameras say the issue is of constant concern, and they're careful to avoid abuse.

"Most people are ambivalent" about the surveillance, said Jean Thompson, 51, whose Glenview neighborhood installed surveillance cameras a month ago. "But we're so creeped out by what is going on (in terms of crime) that we feel we don't have a choice."

It is legal to photograph public spaces, like roads or intersections. But these images live on an online server accessible to anyone with the proper log-in, which means there is the potential for neighbors to see who visits a husband while his wife is away on vacation, or check who doesn't clean up their dog doo.

Individual communities decide for themselves who has access to tens of thousands of pictures, how long they're stored online, and under what circumstances they can be released to the police.

Establishing trust

Jurcenoks said his company provides suggested bylaws, but neighborhoods are free to set up their own rules. Some have decided to store images for 30 days, while others keep the pictures for 90 days. There's no reason the images couldn't be stored forever, but that might not be useful, Jurcenoks said.

"The value in crime solving for images goes down as it gets older," he said. "Most of the value is right as it happens."

In Glenview, where neighbors installed two cameras covering 44 homes a month ago, only two people have access to the roughly 5,000 pictures collected each day. A big red-and-white sign warns passersby that they're under surveillance.

No formal policies have been drafted, but the loose rule, at least so far, is that people who want access to the database of pictures must first provide a police report showing they've been burglarized, said Thompson, a neighborhood block captain.

"So far, we have had very exact descriptions and times" of burglaries, she said. "They say, 'I left at 8 and someone saw something at 10,' and we look at 10:03 and there they are."

Ed Williger, the other resident with access to the database, said he felt comfortable with the system.

"We pick people we trust, and they get to look at the pictures. People asked, 'How do you know they're trustworthy?' " he said. "We live with these people, and we trust them."

For additional privacy, members of the Glenview group say they built their own online database instead of subscribing to the Neighborhood Guard software.

In 29 days, they've captured 200 gigabytes of information, including a few pictures of Thompson's teenage daughter flashing the peace sign to the camera as she returns home from school.

Surveillance images can be incredibly useful for police, said Officer Johnna Watson, a police spokeswoman.

"The Oakland Police Department recognizes and supports our community's decision to purchase surveillance systems," she said, noting that the cameras can "help us solve crimes."

In January, an image captured by a Neighborhood Guard surveillance camera helped police track down the group of men who shot an 81-year-old woman in her Dimond-area home, said Oakland police Capt. Anthony Toribio.

"We were able to put (the image) out to our officers, and within a few hours we had them all identified," Toribio said.

Balancing rights

But the issue can be complicated when images are being used, more mundanely, to keep any eye on every single person who goes in and out of a neighborhood, said Michael Risher, an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California.

"On the one hand, the First Amendment protects the right of people to photograph or video things that are happening in public - and that is an important right," Risher said. "On the other hand, in California we have a right to privacy. The Constitution protects us against government interference, and it also protects against private interference of that right."

Residents should also recognize that no community privacy policy will ever hold up to a divorce-case subpoena or police search warrant, Risher said. Police could seize every image a neighborhood has saved, or even, with a judge's approval, tap in to the system and surreptitiously monitor comings and goings.

"They think they can control it, but they are not being realistic when they think that," Risher said.

Supporting constituents

Libby Schaaf, a city councilwoman who represents Jurcenoks' neighborhood, said she was "sad that people need to dig into their own pockets to get the level of safety that their city should be providing them."

But Schaaf said she appreciates that Oakland residents are working together as a community.

"Just the fact that people are taking collective action is good instead of just arming their own fortress," she said.

Noel Gallo, the city councilman who represents Glenview, said he supports whatever his constituents want to do.

"If that is a neighborhood request, and that is what they choose to do, then I have no problem with it," Gallo said. "The reality here in Oakland is that we're challenged when it comes to safety. We do not have officers everywhere at every time, so right now people have to take the initiative."