Flock, the company behind the AI-driven network of license plate-reading cameras, said it has updated its guardrails to ensure they’re used properly.
Among the changes is the ability for communities to reduce the retention period for images captured by Flock automated license plate readers (ALPR) from 30 days to 7 days. The company is also introducing an “Evidence Mode” for cases that take longer than a week.
“Existing customers will keep their current, democratically approved retention periods. Customers who adopt the 7-day recommendation will receive Evidence Mode at no cost. Every community will continue to choose the retention period that fits its public safety strategy,” Flock said in a news release.
There will also be new filters on what can be shared, depending on the offense they decide on.
The company is also rolling out Audit Assistance, which will flag “abnormal activity” for an administrator to review. The feature was developed after several law enforcement officers “allegedly abused the system”
The New York Times reported three former sheriff’s deputies used Flock’s license plate data for “personal, non-law-enforcement purposes,” the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office said.
They were involved in separate cases in which they each allegedly tracked people with whom they had a “personal relationship” at the time.
The deputies were arrested and charged with stalking, prohibited use of license plate data and violating their oaths as public officers, the Times reported.
All three resigned from their positions.
The Times said other cases include:
- A police officer in Milwaukee who allegedly used the cameras to track a person he was dating and their ex.
- An officer in Texas was accused of tracking a woman across state lines who was suspected of self-administering an abortion.
The Washington Post reported that at least 50 officers have been accused, charged or convicted of using the system, and other similar ones, to keep track of people’s locations, including girlfriends and ex-wives.
All law enforcement departments will be required to adopt Audit Assistance by the end of the year.
The system is already available. It had uncovered the alleged incidents in Bibb County, the Times reported.
Case codes will also be required for law enforcement to search the system by the end of the year, Flock said.
Civil liberties supporters said that case numbers and automated review systems are two key features needed to help prevent the web of cameras from being misused, the Post reported.
Max Isaacs, who is the director of technology law and policy at the New York University School of Law’s Policing Project, said the adjustments are a “welcome change” but wondered why it took so long for the guardrails to be put in place.
“There is no reason the system shouldn’t have been designed that way to begin with,” he told the Post concerning the need for case codes for search. “Ultimately, though, this kind of safeguard should be required by law. It’s completely backward that we are relying on this one company to implement the kinds of things that ought to just be standard everywhere.”
About 7,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, or about 40% of all U.S. departments, have a contract with the Atlanta-based company, according to the Times.
Some cities, however, have canceled their contracts with Flock, and some people opposed to the surveillance system have vandalized the devices, CNN reported.
There are more than 120,000 Flock cameras across the country with more than 20 billion plate scans done every month, The Washington Post said. They have been used to investigate about a million crimes a year.
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