Sacramento California online tracking citizens
The California city of West Sacramento decided to spy on its citizens, becoming the first American city to utilize social media to do so.
Plenty of people don't like the cities they live in. Perhaps the crime rate is too high, or the city has ridiculous laws about the right to keep and bear arms. Perhaps the traffic is just terrible, or the city is notably corrupt, or the city has a history of making silly purchases, like a rail car that can't run during the winter.

It's not uncommon to complain on social media about such a city. But now, West Sacramento is the first city in the nation to monitor social media accounts to see what residents are saying about the city. City officials claim that they're implementing the online tracking tool to 'listen more' to their citizens, and that it's 'good' for the citizenry. However, it seems like they're just doing whatever they want, and it's almost a surprise that the city alerted its citizens to the monitoring plot.

The city is using a system called Zencity, which is designed to crawl through social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and find out what residents are saying about their city.

It sorts through topics of conversation on the various social networking sites, and determines what is trending, and whether it is positive or negative.

Then it provides a snapshot of the content to city leaders.

For example, in January of this year, the Zencity system told city leaders that residents were most concerned with two things; the closure of a local Safeway store, and the brutal murder of two sisters, who were kill by their father.

Two months later, the system showed that local citizens were angry at the lack of updates from police and school staff after a shooting threat at River City High School.

Last year, West Sacramento was hit by a string of mailbox thefts, and Zencity told city officials that people were most concerned with the ongoing thefts and the random nature of the crimes.

West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon seemed to be a fan of the system, saying that if it was not for the new system, the city might never have known that there even was a problem with mailbox thefts .

According to Cabaldon, "the purpose of Zencity is to see the big picture."

However, citizens, still worried about other organizations and programs that creep their social media accounts, were concerned about the city's use of a program that essentially spies on their accounts.

Peter Eckersley, a privacy expert with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that there was cause for concern, especially if local police also utilized the program, or the data that it stored. He saw a number of concerning uses of artificial intelligence.

The American Civil Liberties Union agreed about potential abuses of the technology. They also suggested there could be privacy issues to consider.

However, according to Mayor Cabaldon, there is no threat and no privacy issues to worry about. He claimed that Zencity didn't publish or store anything that was not already publicly published by users.

Instead, he suggested that it would provide greater civic engagement across the city, and help him to be a more informed mayor.

But, there are still multiple questions about how the system gathers data.

Firstly, just because someone 'publicly' posted something on Facebook or another social media site, that does not mean that it is necessarily posted for everyone.

Social media provides a number of security and privacy settings, and the things posted, though technically 'public' to a select group of users, are not necessarily public to all.

Furthermore, whether it is legal or not, most citizens do not like the idea that their city is essentially spying on their Facebook account in order to find out what they think.

Then there's also the issue with the cost of the program. West Sacramento got in early, and therefore paid a discounted rate for their first year of Zencity.

The city is spending $12,000 to license the software for the upcoming year, which represents a third of the original price.

It also seems a little silly that the city would spend that kind of money, considering that the city has a whopping 31,500 people.

It doesn't seem like a city that is big enough to require a complex computer system to engage with its citizens.

Whether the citizens like being spied on by city hall or not, it doesn't really matter until the contract expires. The city will utilize the software at least until that expiration date.

Still, it sets a bad precedent for other cities in California, and it seems like another step toward the future laid out in 1984. It may begin with 'civic engagement,' but it will end with a government that watches every move.