The Lawrence Police Department has rolled out a new program asking residents and businesses to register their security cameras on a list or integrate them for realtime access by police. Some community members worry the system could infringe on privacy.
Voluntary participants in the program can register their security cameras and contact information with the police department, allowing police to see where cameras are located and request footage if a crime occurs nearby.
The program also includes a camera integration option, where participants can install a custom device — ranging in price from $350 to $7,300, with additional annual service subscriptions of $150 to $2,300 — to allow the police department live access to camera feeds in case of an emergency.
Access is limited by strict policies and fully controlled by the camera owner, said Sgt. Drew Fennelly of the Lawrence Police Department. They can allow continuous access, access when a call for service is active, or access only when permission is granted. In all cases, camera owners receive notifications that their cameras were accessed, he said.
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Further details on the program website state that “Axon Fusus utilizes artificial intelligence to rapidly search video provided to the system by users in order to mitigate criminal activity. All AI use cases exclude facial recognition, but may be utilized to automatically recognize weapons, vehicles of interest, etc.”
In addition, “private businesses and schools may choose to only have their cameras accessible to Lawrence Kansas Police Department officers when an emergency situation arises and they activate the live streaming capability via a panic button,” the website states regarding the camera integration option. “Private residents and neighborhoods can also have the option to do so or completely opt out.”
The Lawrence Police Department’s program website boasted 112 integrated cameras as of Monday. Other cities that have had the same system in place longer boast many more — Memphis, Tennessee, for instance, claims 11,815 registered cameras and 2,060 integrated ones.
Some community members raised concerns about the new system after it was announced, saying on social media the system felt like an infringement of their privacy. Others said they would boycott Lawrence businesses that participate in the program.
In a column published in The Lawrence Times, Lawrence-based organizer Kincaid Dennett wrote that despite the camera sharing being voluntary, cameras don’t stop at property lines. Footage recorded could include sidewalks, streets, parks, cars and people who may not know they are being recorded.
“We deserve transparency before police get realtime access to our neighborhoods,” they wrote. “We deserve public debate before we’re pulled into a nationwide experiment in pre-crime technology. And we deserve better than a surveillance rollout that hides behind the language of community safety.”
Fennelly said department policy requires video systems to only monitor public areas and public activities for an investigative purpose where no reasonable expectation of privacy exists.
The program is run by Axon, a company that provides public safety and security technology. Lawrence in 2019 began purchasing body cameras, intelligence software and more from Axon.
In 2024, city commissioners approved a consolidated contract extending usage of the systems. Within the contract was the addition of Fusus software, the Axon product that includes asking communities for access to cameras.
In 2025, $472,545 was included in the 2025 budget, and the agenda item said approval of the contract would entail a $202,214 increase for the 2026 budget, totaling $674,759 to be paid in 2026 and each of the following three years for a grand total of about $3.2 million through January 2029.
“The goal of both programs is not mass surveillance,” Fennelly said. “The department lacks the personnel to monitor even its own cameras continuously, let alone privately owned ones. Instead, the aim is to improve the speed and efficiency of investigations and to enhance officer safety by providing critical situational awareness as officers respond to a scene. … Both city-owned and private cameras are accessed only in response to a specific call for service.”
Multiple community members and representatives of privacy-focused organizations did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.
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Cuyler Dunn (he/him), a contributor to The Lawrence Times since April 2022, is a student at the University of Kansas School of Journalism. He is a graduate of Lawrence High School where he was the editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, The Budget, and was named the 2022 Kansas High School Journalist of the Year. Read his complete bio here. Read more of his work for the Times here.
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