“Newport does not need to be a guinea pig for invasive technological surveillance,” said Newport resident Jeff Richardson Wednesday night. “One of the most controversial issues in America.”
The Newport Police Department held a town hall meeting on July 8 for residents to ask questions about the city’s consideration of Flock cameras. Members of the police department and representatives from Flock were present at the meeting.
The room was packed on Wednesday with concerned citizens raising questions about the technology, from protecting their privacy to why Newport needed to be on the leading edge of the controversial equipment.
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 town hall comes after the city discussed the potential use of Flock license plate reader cameras at a May 11 meeting, where police officials highlighted public safety benefits, while residents once again raised privacy concerns.
The city has been piloting 17 cameras for over three months. Newport Police Captain Kevin Drohan, who helped run the town hall, said the trial period has been extended to gather public input. Should the city go through with the decision to purchase the cameras, they will cost $3,000 per camera, per year.
Drohan said that no funding has been set aside for cameras and that, should the city go through with buying the equipment, it would use drug forfeiture money.
Local attorney Jacqueline Mayer Grant, with an office in Newport, also spoke during the town hall. She said nothing that either party said would change her mind about not wanting Flock cameras in Newport. Mayer Grant said she was concerned about the aggregate effect of the data collection by Flock, especially from a Fourth Amendment (protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government) perspective.
“I don’t want to have it because I don’t want the misuse that is inherent in this product,” Mayer Grant said.
Some of those inherent misuses were raised by resident Greg Wagner, who cited a recent incident involving Flock cameras in Dayton, Ohio. The Dayton Daily News reported in May that the city was suspending its Flock license plate readers because the data was being used for immigration enforcement. In that case, a review revealed that a network sharing feature had been enabled, allowing data to be accessed more broadly than intended and than what was authorized by the city commission, as reported by The Dayton Daily News.
Kerry McCormick with Flock Safety was at the meeting to answer questions on the company’s behalf.
“That was an instance where there was an officer who committed a misuse and was terminated, and so those things are extremely serious,” McCormick said. “The audit system that is in place caught that, but again, with over 6,000 agencies across the country that utilize the technology on a regular basis, there are sometimes unfortunate misuse cases, few and far between, for the daily use of the system.”
Further, McCormick said that while Flock has had communities that have either not renewed their contracts or canceled them due to budget issues, pushback or other issues, that only 30 members canceled their contracts, while 925 either renewed or came on with the company for the first time.
While some residents questioned why the city was in a rush to implement the technology, Drohan said the process has gone on since December, with the department still gathering information on whether the Flock cameras are most suitable for Newport.
According to a handout from the police department at the meeting, the cameras are located at:
- 10th and Monmouth Street- One active camera
- 2100 block of Monmouth Street- One inactive camera
- 700 block of Monmouth Street-One inactive camera
- 3rd and York Street- One active and one inactive camera
- Dave Cowens Drive- One active and one inactive camera
- 4th Street Roundabout- One inactive camera
- 700 Block Isabella Street- One inactive camera
- 11th and Brighton Street- One active and one inactive camera
- Lowell Street-two inactive cameras
- 10th and Pavilion Parkway- One active camera
- Pavilion Parkway and Chesapeake Avenue- One inactive camera
- N Grand Avenue- One active camera
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.
“In our contract, we control that data, and will release after our retention period that we specify, which is 30 days, unless it’s part of a criminal investigation,” Drohan said. “Part of our policy says that none of that data will be sold.”
Drohan said that license plate cameras do not continuously track where someone drives, do not use facial recognition, do not identify the drivers or occupants, do not record conversations, do not issue tickets, do not monitor someone’s phone or IP address, do not know why you are going where you’re going, and do not record a video of your journey.
He said that some of the ways license plate reader cameras can help the public and the police are by locating stolen vehicles, assisting officers and investigations in violent crimes, such as murders, sexual assault, carjackings and shootings.
“The shooting that we had at 10th and Monmouth was integral in finding that vehicle information after that vehicle fled the scene of that shooting,” Drohan said. “So they [Flock cameras] generated an investigative lead, helped us identify suspects.”
The Newport City Commission will be the deciding body on whether the city implements the Flock cameras beyond the trial basis. A meeting date has not yet been set for that vote.
“I trust the city commission. I trust our administration here,” resident Jeff Richardson said in his concluding remarks. “If they end up deciding to go forward with this, I hope that they put a straitjacket on so tight that it will be famous in the United States for how restricted and tight our allowance for the use of Flock is. I suspect that it would be so tight that it would not be useful.”
Interact with the map below to see the location of Flock cameras across the country.
