Should police radios stay private?

Honolulu police and news outlets are at odds over a city proposal to allow certain media groups access to police radio channels.

Bill 46 would require the Honolulu Police Department to allow certain trusted organizations access to HPD’s dispatch radio systems.

These trusted media outlets would be either Federal Communications Commission-certified broadcasters, an outlet that is already listed as a publication of note for legal or public notice purposes, or to be a reputable journalistic outlet for at least 10 years. These requirements would preclude Aloha State Daily, at six months of publication, from inclusion.

But HPD interim chief Rade Vanic said Thursday at a meeting of the Honolulu City Council Committee on Public Safety and Economy that he cannot support Bill 46, warning that it would compromise the safety and effectiveness of police operations and open the department to potential legal penalties.

“Our dispatch radio often includes highly sensitive personal information,” Vanic said. “That includes names, home addresses, medical conditions and criminal histories.”

Releasing this information on a public radio channel could constitute a violation of federal and state privacy laws, Vanic said.

Furthermore, Vanic said HPD relies on FBI databases to conduct investigations, and access to those databases is contingent on adhering to FBI information security policies. Allowing public access to HPD dispatch radio could therefore cut off the FBI databases, and make criminal investigations much harder.

An FBI spokesperson could not confirm whether this was true to ASD Thursday.

Vanic said he agrees with the intention of the bill and that HPD and media groups could work together to make vital information more accessible more quickly without opening up the radios. But he added that releasing information real-time can and has led to media inadvertently interfering with investigations when reporters arrive on crime scenes before first responders.

Vanic’s position was an about-face from previous council discussions of the bill, where he said that he had heard that other reputable Mainland police departments have taken similar measures, and so therefore HPD “should be able to figure it out.”

However, Vanic said that further investigation found that most of those Mainland departments haven’t opened their dispatch radios to media, and the ones that have wish they hadn’t.

“They had to dramatically change their operations,” Vanic said of one Mainland police department.

But some media representatives urged the committee to reconsider Thursday. Kristina Lockwood, general manager of KHON, said reporters’ abilities to provide up-to-date information about fast-developing events have been badly impacted by HPD’s 2022 switch to encrypted radio.

Instead, Lockwood said media groups are limited to police-supplied incident logs, which she said are often incomplete and don’t mention significant events  — as an example, she said the police’s log for July 6 did not mention the mandatory wildfire evacuation Mā‘ili.

“Journalists aren’t just listening to scanners to sensationalize a situation,” said Chris Leonard, president of the Hawai‘i Association of Broadcasters. “They’re using it to mobilize staff, to verify facts, get accurate updates out quickly.”

Leonard said there are ways to keep personal information private while still allowing media organizations access to real-time information, such as only allowing credentialed access to radios, or officers keeping tactical communications on private channels.

But Vanic was skeptical of these proposals, arguing that HPD’s dispatch radios aren’t set up for multiple channels, that changing channels in a critical situation is an added distraction that could endanger officers, and that HPD is already having a difficult time filling its current dispatcher positions with only one encrypted channel.

Vanic told the committee he would only support the bill if the clause requiring HPD agreements with media outlets for dispatch radio access was removed. Councilmember Tommy Waters noted that this would defeat the entire purpose of the bill, and instead moved to pass the bill to the full Council without changes.

However, Waters said the Council will discuss future amendments to the bill that address Vanic’s concerns.