Citing serious privacy concerns, the ACLU of Rhode Island and the ACLU’s Brown University campus chapter are calling on university President Christina Paxson to decline the Providence Police Department’s request that the institution share campus camera feeds with Providence’s Real Time Crime Center (RTCC). The civil liberties organization sent similar letters to other colleges and universities with campuses in Providence that have also been approached by the police department to share camera feed access after the shooting at Brown in December.
While supporting the goal of promoting safety initiatives on campus, the civil liberties organization’s letter to President Paxson flagged serious privacy concerns over collaboration with the RTCC, arguing that sharing camera access “poses a substantial risk to your students, staff, faculty, and visitors in the absence of sufficient protections for privacy and accountability.” The letter explains two examples of how the data could be misused, including targeting free speech on campus and immigration actions:
"For example, particularly in light of the current federal administration’s continued attacks on the right to protest at colleges and universities, we can easily envision campus footage provided to the RTCC used for the surveillance of free speech activities on campus and the targeting of 'troublemakers.'
To give another example, our Affiliate was forced to file a lawsuit last year after the Trump Administration arbitrarily began revoking the F-1 visas of students in local colleges and institutions, including Brown. Easy access to surveillance footage of students on campus can only increase the possibility of targeted actions like that by the federal government in the future."
The RTCC was announced in 2025 by the Providence Police Department. It connects city-owned camera feeds and private camera feeds, if the owner has opted in to sharing, into a centralized surveillance system. There are currently no state laws that govern the use of the RTCC. The Providence City Council passed amendments to the city’s Community-Police Relationship Act in October 2025, which partially limits the way data collected through the RTCC can be used to assist with federal immigration enforcement, but otherwise this vast surveillance system is largely unregulated.
The letter to President Paxson can be viewed here.