The Newport Board of Commissioners discussed the potential use of Flock license plate reader cameras during a May 11 meeting, where police officials highlighted public safety benefits and residents raised privacy concerns.
The board heard a presentation by the police department on its technology updates on Monday; Flock cameras drew the most attention. Though the city did not sign any contracts to purchase the cameras, it did discuss the possibility of buying six in the future.
A Flock camera is not a type of camera but rather the brand of camera. It is a specialized, solar-powered automated license plate reader designed by Flock Safety to capture images of license plates and vehicle characteristics, such as make, model, color and unique features, in real time.
The cameras capture still images rather than video, and the city is not using the system’s available facial recognition capabilities. Data collected by the cameras is retained for 30 days, which falls within the limits set by House Bill 58, requiring that such data not be stored for more than 90 days.
The city has been piloting 34 cameras for the past three months. Should the city go through with the decision to purchase the cameras, they are $3,000 per camera, per year.
Newport Police Chief Chris Fangman said an example where Flock camera technology would have been useful in the past was in the death of Gloria San Miguel, who was hit by a car on her bike and killed on the 11th Street Bridge in 2022. The suspect had fled the scene, and back then the department didn’t have the technology it has today, such as Flock cameras.
“We were able to find Miguel’s killer, but it took good old-fashioned police work and a little bit of luck,” Fangman said. “It was a needle in a haystack. It was a Chevy Trailblazer. We found out there were 400 in the area. We found that vehicle in the backyard, up in Hawaiian Terrace. That was before we were using any type of automated license plate reader, Flock. We could have found that so much more efficiently.”
Fangman said the department also has a very restrictive police pursuit policy. While he said the department will not engage in a police pursuit unless it’s a serious crime, they still need a tool to catch people.
Even if the city only bought six cameras, Fangman said Newport would gain access to a nationwide network of cameras useful for tracking suspects across jurisdictions and for cases like abductions.
Newport City Manager John Hayden said the city can also limit who it shares the information with and which topics it wishes to share or not.
For example, Hayden said he heard community concerns about immigration enforcement and that the city has opted not to share the Flock reader with the federal government. He did say they would comply with any court order.
Hayden said the city also received an email from a concerned individual about how the Flock camera was abused in a Texas case. An individual had sought an abortion and had been tracked by an officer through Flock technology. Hayden said the cameras have a strong audit trail and cities have the ability to look into that, which he said is how the officer in Texas was caught abusing the system.
“There are audit materials in place,” he said. “They will happen. Officers have an individual sign-in sheet. They have to sign in individually. So if someone violates the terms, we’re going to know who that individual is, and proper action will be taken.”
During the meeting, Newport Police Captain Kevin Drohan displayed the Flock camera system settings, showing that data sharing with federal agencies is disabled. He also demonstrated that searches related to immigration or reproductive health are restricted, with filters in place to prevent those results from appearing. Additionally, Drohan said the department has signed a memorandum of understanding aligned with Illinois policy affirming that it will not use the system to search for data connected to reproductive health.
The police department said that officers must select a crime type before searching the data, and the system is not passive surveillance—it requires a reason to query. Fangman said in today’s age, a department can’t go to court without some form of surveillance.
Aside from concerns raised by residents prior to the meeting and addressed by city officials, six people spoke during public comment. The discussion highlighted ongoing unease between public safety benefits and residents’ privacy concerns.
Newport resident Mike Curtis said that Flock cameras violate the 4th Amendment, which protects individuals against “unreasonable searches and seizures” by the government.
“Once the data is out there, there’s no getting it back, no getting rid of it, no deleting it; it is housed and stored even if it’s no longer accessible to the general public,” Curtis said. “We teach our children to be careful what they share on the interweb, but now we’re being forced, mandated, unwillingly, to become part of a machine by simply existing.”
Newport resident Kyle Randall started his comments by thanking the city for holding the discussion on the cameras publicly, even though it was not required.
One of Randall’s questions was why the city could not utilize its own cameras rather than using a third party’s equipment. Drohan said during the meeting that the city utilizes over 100 cameras that capture video rather than the still images the Flock cameras take.
“Clearly, we have some of our own cameras, and I think with our own cameras, there’s no doubt at all about who controls that data or who has access to it, and I think there’s always going to be an open question or doubt about who has access to data when there’s a third party involved,” Randall said.
Fangman said the department attempted to create its own prototype in the past and put it on the 4th Street Bridge; however, the cameras cannot accurately capture a fast-moving vehicle like a Flock camera.
“Flocks are getting the attention, because I think they developed it quicker than everybody else,” Fangman said. “This might change. We are not above pulling out if we find anything wrong with a company that we’re ever associated with. It’s not the right fit moving forward; it’s just always a balance for us of how you all feel [residents] and the crimes we’re expected to solve. It’s a huge balance of just trying to do what’s best.”
Newport Mayor Tom Guidugli Jr. said any future contract that needs to be signed, should the city decide to purchase the Flock cameras, will be presented at another public meeting.
