2 CT towns end contracts with automated license plate reader company Flock Safety
Two towns are ending their contracts with Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company that operates automated license plate readers.
There are 16 Flock cameras in Windsor. Mayor Nuchette Black-Burke said all cameras are turned off, and they will be taken down by the fall.
“This tool is important; the vendor is not what we want,” she said. “If there was another vendor out there that can somehow work with police departments across our country, across Connecticut, that can protect the privacy of our citizens and the data that you’re collecting. Please, by all means, give me a call. But for right now, we had to part ways with this private vendor for the safety of our citizens.”
Flock Safety said their cameras helped locate more than 10,000 missing people and supported more than a million investigations nationwide last year.
Black-Burke said the cameras helped the Windsor police solve a stolen-car case a few years ago, but now she’s worried about privacy.
“Where is that information going? Is it being sold to other third parties? Can it be used to harm than do more good?” she asked.
While red light and speed cameras capture images when a crime is committed, automated license plate readers capture the plates of every car that drives by, no matter what.
Eric Weiner has a background in tech and led the charge to remove Flock cameras.
“I did a FOIA request a year ago of Windsor, and I got about two months’ worth of data that showed how the system was searched,” he said. “Windsor data was searched 590,000 times over the course of nine weeks, from beginning of April last year. That shocked me.”
Only plates, not faces, are captured, according to Flock’s Data and Security section on its website. It also said local agencies control access to the data, but Black-Burke believes national agencies could see the information.
“The data is being stored on their servers and they have that available that other agencies can use that information,” she said.
The Windsor town council voted last week to end its contract with Flock. Weiner said he is gathering signatures for a petition that would force a special town meeting at which the council can adopt an ordinance banning any automated license plate reader in town.
Killingworth is also not renewing its contract for its four Flock cameras positioned on Route 81.
At a board of selectmen meeting last month, the first selectman, Eric Couture, said there were concerns about security and privacy.
“A lot more information about Flock in particular came about after both the board of selectmen and board of finance had approved and we had signed the contract with the company,” he said.
He also mentioned that state police covering Killingworth would not handle Freedom of Information Act requests and that the town must handle them.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Flock Safety said:
“Every day, police departments across the country use Flock technology to help solve serious crimes and make a measurable public safety impact. When a tool that helps law enforcement solve violent crimes, locate suspects, recover stolen vehicles, and find missing people is removed, public safety moves backward.
That has real consequences: cases can take longer to solve, organized retail theft crews can operate with fewer obstacles, missing people may be harder to locate, and victims may wait longer, or indefinitely, for justice.”
Dozens of other towns have automated license plate readers.
A state law that sets restrictions on these cameras, such as prohibiting their use in immigration investigations, goes into effect in October.
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