While I appreciate that that the library endeavors to take privacy seriously and sees it as a core value, these cameras are at odds with those ideals.
It may be the intent of the library to only use this camera system for security, but it has chosen a method that is very intrusive to do so. The library director and senior librarians may be community members of unimpeachable virtue who would never abuse their roles, but there are no such assurances from the third party vendors involved in the transmission, storage, and analysis of the video data from the cameras. You should not provide with a panopticon into our community.
If the library has security concerns, then closed-circuit cameras recording to on-site tapes, drives, or memory would be sufficient to maintain a visual record for the county’s purposes.
There are undoubtedly clauses in the end user license agreements that will allow the data from these cameras to be used for almost any purpose desired. Once they are turned on, you no longer control what happens to them. How many people work for the company that handle the cameras? What are their hiring practices like? What cybersecurity protocols do they have in place? What contracts do they have to sell your data on for further profit once they have it in their system?
What arrangements do they have with law enforcement or other government agencies that have not been disclosed to you? These may sound like hyperbolic concerns but there are many credible reports of corporate and government abuses. Some
[Some examples:]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
Almost everyone reading this will have received notification that their personal information has been compromised because of a data breach from a hotel, or a social media site, or a department store, or a phone company. Why would the library want to put themselves in a position where they might be sending such a notification to their patrons?
Thank you for your time,
Jeremiah Shepersky
Nehalem Resident