Which U.S. cities have enacted procurement or oversight rules specifically targeting surveillance software since 2023?
Executive summary
Since 2023 the publicly available reporting provided here identifies a small set of U.S. cities that have enacted procurement or oversight rules specifically aimed at surveillance technologies — notably Cambridge, Berkeley and San Francisco (ordinances and reporting functions referenced as of early 2023) and New York City’s post‑2023 administrative camera‑registration measures referenced in local reporting — but the sources make clear that municipal activity is broader than this narrow sample and that the documentation in the supplied reporting is incomplete [1] [2].
1. What the question is actually asking and how the sources answer it
The user seeks a list of U.S. cities that, since 2023, have adopted rules that specifically govern acquisition, procurement, or oversight of surveillance software and systems; the available materials provide explicit municipal examples (Cambridge, Berkeley, San Francisco) documented in a January 2023 Lawfare survey of local surveillance laws and a later local reporting brief that points to New York City registration requirements — but the reporting set does not offer a comprehensive, national ledger of every city action after 2023, so conclusions must be restricted to what these sources actually name [1] [2].
2. The clearest municipal examples in the reporting
Lawfare’s January 2023 survey reported that Cambridge, Berkeley and San Francisco had passed ordinances that at minimum required reporting on surveillance use and were undertaking acquisition and use reviews — framing those three as cities with explicit local oversight functions for surveillance technologies [1]; separate reporting referenced New York City administrative steps tying some camera registrations and post‑2023 requirements for certain businesses to police notification and integration with monitoring systems [2].
3. What “procurement or oversight rules” looked like in these places
According to Lawfare, Cambridge and Berkeley had moved beyond simple reporting to conducting first‑round reviews of acquisitions and use policies, while San Francisco’s regime in that survey was also oriented to reporting and public scrutiny rather than an outright procurement ban — the emphasis in the reporting is on transparency, review processes and public notice rather than uniform prohibitions [1]; New York City’s measures reported in local coverage required certain businesses to register external cameras and provide details to police, a form of administrative oversight tied to device deployment [2].
4. Broader context: municipalities are active but patchy data limits firm claims
EPIC and other policy reviews cited in the material make clear that states and municipalities have increasingly filled federal gaps on surveillance and algorithmic transparency, and that cities have taken diverse approaches from task forces to minimum standards — but these summaries stop short of cataloging every city action since 2023, so any comprehensive list cannot be compiled from the supplied reporting alone [3] [4].
5. Competing priorities and hidden agendas evident in the coverage
Lawfare flags an unresolved tension: local ordinances often lack provisions to prevent private vendors from using nondisclosure agreements that shield surveillance systems from judicial or public scrutiny, which suggests vendor and vendor‑friendly procurement practices can blunt municipal oversight even where rules exist; advocacy groups like the ACLU have promoted model ordinances to strengthen cities’ regulatory reach, indicating an advocacy‑driven push behind many municipal measures [1].
6. State and federal moves that shape municipal options
The sources also document state‑level innovations (for example, Montana and Utah instituting warrant requirements for facial recognition in 2023) and federal guidance and bills under consideration, which affect how cities craft procurement and oversight rules but are not themselves municipal actions — this context helps explain why cities vary widely in the scope and teeth of their local rules [5] [6] [7].
7. Bottom line and limits of this accounting
Based only on the supplied reporting, the cities explicitly identified as having enacted procurement/oversight rules around surveillance technologies in or since 2023 are Cambridge, Berkeley and San Francisco (named in the Lawfare survey) and New York City as described in local reporting about camera registration practices; however, the sources acknowledge broader municipal activity and do not provide a complete, up‑to‑date national list, so further primary local ordinance searches or an updated national tracker would be required to produce a definitive, exhaustive inventory [1] [2] [3].