San Francisco Landlord Tech Report

By Erin McElroy, Noah Cohen, Paula Garcia-Salazar, Gracie Harris, Andrew Liquigan, Matt Martignoni, Maggie McCarroll, Lulia Liu Pan, Alyssa Ramirez, and Shiyu Catherine Xu

This report examines the increasing deployment of landlord technologies in San Francisco (SF) housing and the problems this creates and intensifies. These technologies include facial recognition, closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, and other algorithmic, biometric, and app-based building access technologies specifically designed to be deployed in tenant housing and surrounding public and private space. As researchers with the Anti-Eviction Lab and the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, we map the genealogies and geographies of these surveillance systems, looking at intersections of surveillance, carcerality, and gentrification. 

Section Summaries

Chapter 1

We begin in Chapter 1 by examining the history of cameras in tenant housing in San Francisco, looking at histories and impacts of surveillance in public and private housing.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 looks at the phenomenon of “digital doormen” deployed in tenant housing in the city, focusing on surveillance harms.

Chapter 3

We then in Chapter 3 turn platforms that enable neighborhood surveillance and policing such as Nextdoor and Citizen. 

Chapter 6

We then look at the policy landscape of landlord technologies more broadly in Chapter 6, exploring intersections of surveillance, privacy, and tenant law. 

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 explores the history of Airbnb in San Francisco, questioning best practices to think through regarding the regulation of private tech in private housing. 

Chapter 7

We conclude in Chapter 7 by gesturing towards possibilities of organizing against landlord technologies and the automation of gentrification. 

Chapter 5

Next in Chapter 5, we explore tenant screening and the algorithmic harms the industry imposes upon tenants. We also examine related policies.

Living With Cameras

In the report we outline the story of J, who describes what it is like to live with seven landlord-installed cameras in her Mission District home.

Digital Doormen

“Digital Doormen” facilitate gentrification

Tenant Screening

Tenant screening automates gentrification

Tenant Testimonials

  • It (the camera) is targeted at me. Landlord tried to evict me, but he had no evidence, because there was none, so he installed cameras in February to catch me doing something evictable. Monitor is in the agent’s apartment just below mine, in a 2 apartment building. I live alone.

  • The LL also installed surveillance cams about a few weeks after my taking possession of the apt.; he never once did he mention, announce, and/or propose the installation of these cameras; they just appeared suddenly. This instigated me to place cams atop my apt door, as there are NO security cams in my hallway.

  • We have had intermittent issues with our landlord over the course of our tenancy (accusations of us smoking, monitoring our comings-and-goings with a security camera)... she has been accusing us of various acts which we did not commit almost on a daily basis and has threatened to go to the SF rent board several times.

  • I noticed that the landlord surreptitiously installed two hidden cameras in the garage, one facing the laundry area and the other facing the entrance hall to the garage, which is the only way for all tenants to get in and out. The landlord has his own entrance on the second floor, and he usually doesn’t need to pass by downstairs. The landlord installed the above two cameras without the consent of the tenants downstairs.

  • There is a speaker in the kitchen and a camera in the bedroom.

  • Landlord just installed a Google Nest camera through Dish TV because Dish TV scared my elderly landlord into thinking dangerous ‘looters’ will be destroying the property. We’ve never had any problems, and yet still the landlord got scared. Now there is a camera outside of my bedroom window.

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