Becker bill aims to reopen police radio communications to public

“My goal is to restore the access the media and the public had to police radio communications for nearly a century up until three years ago, when law enforcement agencies were given the option to shut it down,” Becker said.

The open access policy that had been in place since the 1920s changed in October 2020 when the California Department of Justice directed law enforcement agencies to protect people’s personal information that might otherwise be shared over the police radio in one of two ways: by establishing a detailed policy outlining what personal or identifying information can or cannot be communicated on open radio channels or by encrypting all radio traffic so that no radio communications can be heard by the media or anyone else.

The Los Altos Police Department chose the latter option. The department wasn’t alone. As a result of the DOJ directive, approximately 100 of more than 700 law enforcement agencies surveyed have chosen the second option and shut off all radio communications to the media and the public, rather than train officers and dispatchers on what to share and not share over open police radios.

“The ability to hear how officers talk to one another over the radio helps make police departments more accountable,” Becker said. “On a practical level, it also makes it easier for the media to report on public safety activities such as accidents or shootings, so the public can be told about areas to

avoid.”

Those agencies that have opted to continue sharing their radio communications while protecting personal information include the CHP and dozens of counties and cities, including San Mateo and

Palo Alto.

Potential impacts

While media outlets are praising the bill, its passage could negatively impact the local police department, according to Los Altos Police Chief Angela Averiett.

“Although I understand the public need for transparency, this bill would be very costly,” she told the Town Crier last week. “We currently have only one radio channel that we use for all police communications. The radio is monitored by one dispatcher because that is what our staffing allows.

“In order to unencrypt our solo radio channel, we would need to add a secondary, encrypted, radio channel to run PII (public interest immunity, which keeps private information shielded) on. It would stretch our resources way too thin to have one dispatcher monitoring two separate radio channels. It would be great if the senator could add a funding component to his proposal to help smaller agencies like Los Altos PD comply with the bill if it passes.”

“The bill does not make funding available,” acknowledged Evan Goldberg, who works in Becker’s office, “but it does provide the alternative of allowing departments to establish a detailed policy outlining what personal or identifying information can or cannot be communicated on open radio channels.”

Co-sponsored by the California News Publishers Association and the California Broadcasters Association, SB 719 will be assigned to a State Senate policy committee and will be heard sometime this month or in early April.