Missoula council delays park camera upgrade vote amid AI surveillance concerns MISSOULA, Mont. — Missoula City Council is putting off a decision to purchase and upgrade cameras for city parks and facilities amid concerns over artificial intelligence capabilities. The contract for upgraded cameras made by the company Verkada was front and center, after widespread public concern about their ability to use AI for facial recognition and license plate scanning. If approved, the cameras would have been installed at Splash Montana, Currents Aquatic Center, Mobash Skatepark and Fort Missoula Regional Park. All of the sites currently have older cameras. The city insists the cameras are to upgrade existing infrastructure after an uptick in incidents. "In terms of vandalism, in 2025 just this past fall, the windows at the Currents Aquatic Center were vandalized, and by vandalized I mean someone threw rocks through them shattering them and throwing glass and rocks into the pool," said Marina Yoshioka, the director of Missoula Parks and Recreation. Yoshioka also cited damage at Fort Missoula's soccer fields and muggings at Mobash Skate Park. The city's chief operations officer, Eric Hallstrom, was asked by council if buying cameras without AI software was possible. "I don't know that we could do it with dumb cameras, I think we'd still be in a position where we're buying products that are touted as having AI capabilities," said Hallstrom. Hallstrom says in today's times most modern cameras are advertised as AI capable cameras, while city IT added that the current cameras are on their last leg with some already failing. Officials also noted that data from the camera expires in 60 days, adding access and ability to control the data would be limited to only a few people. They also added that if the city decided to terminate the contract, all