A group is organizing to push back against the Lawrence Police Department’s adoption of the Axon Fusus program, a new system for residents to register and integrate security cameras for police use.
The Lawrence Transparency Project had gathered more than 125 signatures as of Monday afternoon on a petition calling for the city to halt implementation of the Community Connect camera registration program. The group is also pushing for more community input and oversight.
The group describes itself as “a grassroots coalition of Lawrence residents, organizers, educators, tech workers, students, and neighbors, working to bring transparency and accountability to local surveillance and policing.”
The police department announced the new Axon Fusus program last week. It has two main components.
The first is an option for residents to register their security cameras with the police. These cameras would be put on a list for the police to request footage if an incident occurred nearby. The police department will not have access to live footage from resident cameras.
The second is an integration option, allowing businesses to purchase a custom device and subscription enabling the police department live access to camera feeds, with varying access levels determined by the camera owner.
Experts and community members have voiced privacy concerns about the program. The program may reflect an industry strategy to encourage police departments to purchase more surveillance products, according to an expert who has done research on the topic.
“Although camera registration is opt-in, the city’s decision to adopt the Fusus surveillance infrastructure was not, and the public was never informed or given a say,” the Lawrence Transparency Project petition via ActionNetwork.org states. “This is not how decisions about surveillance and public safety should be made.”
The police department said the goal of the program is not mass surveillance, but rather more efficient investigations.
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.
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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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Nathan Kramer / Lawrence TimesPetition garners signatures pushing back on Lawrence police camera integration program
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