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· Social Security Numbers As a result of a work session on current police practices for requesting and using social security numbers as a form of identification, a joint Police and Human Rights Commission task force was formed to address the community sensitivities regarding this practice while meeting the needs of officers to verify people's identities during contacts. The Social Security Number (SSN) Task Force agreed to the following three objectives: · To develop a policy that clearly delineates the circumstances in which social security numbers would be requested to improve consistency in police practices; · To develop and implement officer training on both the new policy and the community sensitivities around requesting/collecting social security numbers; · To conduct a public education and outreach effort to explain police policies and procedures so that people are better informed about what to expect during a police contact, particularly as related to supplying social security numbers. Committee members worked with staff to create a new policy, General Order 308.39 - Social Security Numbers to describe the situations when requesting SSNs would be appropriate. The policy also establishes that other valid, government issued identification, including the Matricula Consular issued by the Mexican Consulate, was acceptable as secondary identification. Officer training on both the new policy and the Matricula Consular was held in June, and the policy went into effect on July 1, 2004. III. Challenges and Next Steps a. Workload Management During the previous work plan, the complex and time-intensive SWAT policy review caused a significant deviation from the adopted work plan. The onset of anti-war demonstrations prompted the Police Commission to take a leadership role as liaisons between the police department and peace protest organizers, which also impacted the work plan. This past year, emerging issues were not as problematic. However, the expansion of work session items or liaison activities into more significant projects did pose a workload management challenge. For example, the work session held on the use of social security numbers resulted in the formation of a task team that met over the next eight months, working with department staff to develop a policy and design a community education proposal. The downtown community policing partnership expanded into a planning project involving a team of over a dozen stakeholders and spanned several months to draft public safety strategies focused on improving the conditions downtown. Lastly, following a work session on the status of locations that were generating a high volume of alcohol-related calls for service, the commission passed a motion to revisit the Special Response Fee ordinance and determine if modifications to improve its effectiveness were possible. Staff workload constraints precluded initiation of this ordinance review during this fiscal year. These project expansions are by no means extraneous uses of commission time and resources. To the contrary, the SSN policy is one of the first of such policies in the nation and can serve as a model for other communities looking to balance privacy protections and law enforcement needs. The work of the 2004 Annual Report Page 8 of 10