Cryptocurrency company Ripple Labs and a nonprofit backed by Ripple’s founder is seeking to donate nearly $9.4 million to the San Francisco Police Department’s Real Time Investigation Center, a fledgling branch of the department that uses surveillance technology like cameras and license plate readers to monitor crimes in progress.
The gifts will fund equipment purchases, including 12 new police drones, and will also cover a year and a half of a sublease for 14,000 square feet of downtown office space that Ripple is no longer using.
The Real Time unit, which employs more than a dozen officers and police staff, will move from the decrepit and seismically problematic Hall of Justice to a space at 315 Montgomery St. through the end of 2026, according to a lease already approved by the City Attorney’s Office. Ripple is listed as the “sublandlord.”
Part of the donation money will be funneled to the police department through the San Francisco Police Community Foundation, a nonprofit created in 2023 by billionaire Chris Larsen, Ripple’s founder and a prolific donor to law enforcement and other causes in San Francisco.
The nonprofit’s stated goal is to support the police department and “enhance the morale, recruitment, and retention of police officers, and ultimately support our diverse community with tangible benefits.”
A proposed city ordinance accepting Ripple and the nonprofit’s $9,381,571 donation authorizes the police department to accept and spend future donations from the foundation. It also waives the city’s competitive bid requirements when police acquire equipment and services with money from the nonprofit. Larsen is not on the nonprofit’s board.
Most donations are uncontroversially approved by the Police Commission, and the donations will most likely pass through this week.
“I think it’s good to see SFPD embracing new technology, as long as it’s consistent with the oversight and accountability that the commission has been consistent on,” said commissioner Kevin Benedicto, who added that he would ask questions about the proposal to ensure resources are used effectively.
The police department is one of the city’s most well-funded, with a nearly $850 million budget proposed by Mayor Daniel Lurie for this coming year.
Its Real Time Investigation Center was launched in March 2024 amid the city’s shift toward easing restrictions on police surveillance and expanding use of technology to combat crime. Proposition E, which voters approved that month, emphasized the expansion of technology access for the police department, like drones and new surveillance cameras and overrode the oversight role of the civilian Police Commission.
Larsen was a major donor and proponent of that measure, putting in $250,000 to help fund its passage. He has long been a proponent of expanding surveillance in San Francisco, also funding a security camera network used by the city’s various community benefit districts.
Support has waned for restrictive surveillance policies, like the 2019 ordinance which, at the time it passed, was hailed as historic in protecting the city against unwanted surveillance and banning facial recognition technology. Police have skirted that rule and a state law requiring the department to get approval before purchasing and using military equipment has received little pushback from city leaders. Some, including Mayor London Breed, seemed to encourage the police department’s actions.
In 2022, the city began allowing the police department to live-monitor privately owned cameras across San Francisco, overriding privacy advocates’ concerns. Mission Local reported that the police department began placing its own surveillance cameras in select locations after Prop. E passed last year, beginning in the Mission District.
Matthew Guariglia, a senior policy analyst for surveillance and technology policy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he had concerns about losing control and oversight of what the police spend money on and how they surveil the public.
“By taking money from a very rich person, you’re relinquishing even the power of the pocketbook,” Guariglia said. “Not only do you not have control over what technology police use and how they use it, you also can’t even claim the reins that says that, ‘We can control how much money the police department gets.’”
Nonprofit organizations like Larsen’s community foundation, he added, are a way for police departments to obtain funds from wealthy interests without oversight.
Larsen could not immediately be reached for comment.
The proposal to accept the gift, which the Police Commission will discuss and likely approve this week, applauds the Real Time Investigation Center for assisting in more than 500 arrests and reducing risks to the public by observing suspects at a distance to make “strategic arrests” in lieu of vehicle pursuits.
The centralized unit for new technology “has really changed the way we’re crime fighting is done in San Francisco,” said police spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky. “What we see is the future of crime-fighting … We’re able to respond in real time to crimes as they unfold.”
Sernoffsky said enhanced communications and use of new technologies have allowed for more precise identifications of suspects and fewer unnecessary police interactions for innocent people.
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