A council meeting that was set to discuss a controversial plan to bolster CCTV in Adelaide's northern suburbs was cancelled last night because of a blackout.
About 100 protesters turned up to the City of Salisbury council chamber last night to oppose the council's "Smart Cities" program to introduce more CCTV cameras in the area, some of which would detect people using services such as parking and pedestrian crossings.
However, the power went out before the meeting was due to start and it could not be held.
About 1,200 other properties were also impacted.
The council says the cameras do not use facial recognition technology.
Mayor Gillian Aldridge said councillors were disappointed, as the highly-anticipated meeting was ready to go.
"There was no way we could have run a council meeting for many, many different reasons, one of the main ones being safety issues, because the building would have heated up," she said.
"With the big building, there's a back-up generator, but it only lasted so long in that building."
The meeting was postponed until tonight.
Councillor calls for policy
The protesters were from the No Smart Cities Action Group (NOSCAG), which recently delivered tens of thousands of pamphlets across Salisbury likening the Smart Cities program to an "open-air prison" without privacy.
The group used a picture of Senator Alex Antic in the pamphlet, but he said it was used without his knowledge or consent.
He had opposed a similar plan in the City of Unley.
Councillor Grace Bawden said she was not a member of NOSCAG but agreed with its views and its right to protest.
She said that while the council claimed facial recognition would not be used, she believed a policy needed to be put in place.
"These technologies, the smart technologies, have a capability for facial recognition," she said.
"As long as there's a capability for it, it can be used at any time.
"We don't have policy in place; that is the point of council — to put in a policy to protect the public."
Before the meeting, Ms Aldridge had been concerned about the protest disrupting the meeting, as happened at the City of Onkaparinga two weeks ago.
Last year, the Adelaide City Council voted unanimously not to include facial recognition technology in new security cameras being installed across the CBD.
The council had written to SA Police asking if they could delay using facial recognition technology if it was installed in city cameras until safeguards measures were in place, but police indicated they would likely still use the technology.
