The students found out their dorms held more than 330 cameras from their own newspaper, not the school that installed them.
San Diego State University spent more than $1.3 million turning its campus into one of the most heavily watched in the California State University system and the students who study and live there learned the full scope from their own newspaper rather than from the administration.
University Police finished installing over 1,300 AI-enabled cameras in 2024, threading them through classroom buildings, bookstores, dining areas, parking structures, gyms and the residence halls where students sleep.
The picture only came together after investigative journalism students at The Daily Aztec pried the camera locations loose with a public records request.
Where the cameras went says a lot about who the system is built to watch. More than 330 of them point at student housing, close to 28 percent of the entire network.