The Oakland Police Department’s plans to begin encrypting its radio transmissions is drawing public scrutiny due to concerns over transparency in the department.
Police radios allow for communication between law enforcement and dispatchers. They have historically used public radio frequencies, allowing journalists, watchdogs, and members of the public to listen in and monitor police activities.
The First Amendment Coalition is an organization that advocates for press freedom. FAC has been vocal against law enforcement agencies shifting their communications off the public airwaves.
“It’s really disappointing that Oakland has decided to go this route,” said FAC executive director David Snyder. “This kind of radio traffic is really essential for journalists who are covering law enforcement, or who are covering natural disasters and other major news events because they need to have real-time information about what’s happening to inform the public.”
Given the importance of police radio as a tool for transparency and informing the public on breaking news, OPD’s decision to silence its radio traffic to the public has raised some concerns over keeping the department accountable.
“It means that the only way that we can know what is happening is through OPD, and Oakland Police Department has a very long history of lying to and deceiving the public,” said Cat Brooks, the co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project, an Oakland-based nonprofit that aims to eradicate and raise awareness of police violence within communities of color.
OPD has been under federal oversight since 2003 after more than 100 residents, mostly Black men, filed a civil rights lawsuit alleging that officers beat and planted evidence on them.
Snyder agrees that without access to OPD’s radio traffic, it will be hard to know the truth about what goes on within the department.
“It’s a way of ensuring that the public has access to what’s actually happening, not just the PR version of events from the Police Department,” he said.
DOJ policy drives encryption push
OPD’s decision follows a 2020 state Department of Justice directive that mandates law enforcement agencies to keep personal and sensitive data confidential.
To comply with this requirement, the DOJ gave two options — either encrypt radio traffic or establish policy to restrict the broadcast of certain data, such as personally identifiable information.
“This change ensures that sensitive information remains secure and aligns with a 2020 California Department of Justice (DOJ) policy requiring the encryption of personally identifiable information (PII) transmitted over police radios to safeguard individual privacy,” Oakland police said in a statement.
“Encrypting our channels is a critical step in strengthening operational security, enhancing the safety of our first responders, and continuing to support public safety.”
Oakland Police Department statement
OPD’s move to cut off public access to its radio traffic is also part of a broader effort across the East Bay in which nearly all law enforcement agencies in Alameda and Contra Costa counties are shifting to radio encryption. The East Bay Regional Communications System Authority is in charge of implementing the switch.
“Encrypting our channels is a critical step in strengthening operational security, enhancing the safety of our first responders, and continuing to support public safety,” Oakland police said in a statement.
However, the department’s plan to move its conversations off the public radio frequencies Wednesday did not come to fruition due to technical difficulties, police said.
“The Oakland Police Department (OPD) expected that the East Bay Regional Communications System Authority (EBRCSA) would activate the encryption process on Wednesday,” according to police. “However, EBRCSA stated that unexpected technical issues caused a delay.”
As of Friday, OPD’s radio traffic was still publicly accessible. Oakland police did not give an estimated timeframe for when its communications would finally go dark.
‘They want to do it in the dark’
For OPD watchdogs like the Anti Police-Terror Project, silencing radio traffic means losing access to a critical tool for transparency.
“This is a department that has killed civilians, violated court mandates, manipulated evidence, and undermined civilian oversight,” Brooks said. “Now they want to do it in the dark.”
Ricardo Garcia-Acosta is the chair of the Oakland Police Commission, the body in charge of overseeing OPD. He said in a statement that the department’s decision to encrypt its radio communications was “a bit of a surprise” to the commission.
He also noted that the public can access encrypted radio transmissions by filing public record requests.
“The Commission must emphasize that encrypted transmissions remain public records, available to the public upon request,” Garcia-Acosta said. “We’ll keep working closely with the OPD and community stakeholders to find a balance between operational security and the transparency that’s essential for public trust.”
Note: Katherine Rowlands, the president of Bay City News, is also the president of First Amendment Coalition’s Board of Directors.
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