SALIDA, Colo. — The Salida Police Department is canceling their contract with Flock Safety, the surveillance technology company increasingly under bipartisan scrutiny over privacy concerns, following community pushback over the past several weeks.
The announcement from Chief of Police Russ Johnson came on the same day the company announced changes to its platform to quell some of the backlash it has received over its network of automated cameras that record the license plate numbers and other characteristics of all passing vehicles every day.
In a statement Thursday, Johnson said that even though Flock’s Automated License Plate Reader system has been a helpful tool and has aided the city in their investigations, “there have been many questions about privacy, data retention, access to information, and inappropriate use of the technology.”
“After a lengthy conversation internally and with the community, we feel that cancelling the contract is the appropriate decision at this time,” Johnson said.
Salida, located about 100 miles west of Pueblo, joins dozens of other cities across the country which have nixed their relationship with Flock amid concerns that the data can be accessed for immigration enforcement or used in unauthorized tracking, after a flurry of examples surfaced of law enforcement officers misusing the technology for personal searches.
Earlier this year, Denver ended its relationship with Flock in a narrow vote by city council after the city banned the sharing of license plate reader data with the federal government last year.
By June, Fort Collins followed suit, shutting down their network of Flock license plate readers after city council voted to cancel their contracts with the surveillance technology company.
Denver7's Claire Lavezzorio talked with Fort Collins residents after the move was announced. Watch what they had to say in the video below:
In Wellington, residents there have raised questions about the type of data Flock is collecting. Denver7’s Northern Colorado and Eastern Plains reporter Peter Choi took those questions to the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office, which defended their use of Flock cameras and said audits of the system have not yet identified any improper use of Flock technology since adopting the system.
Those audits are something Flock CEO Garrett Langly told the Associated Press Thursday would now be part of a mandatory process that will be implemented across the company’s customers by Jan. 1. Flock, which says its customers own the data that the cameras record, is also shortening the standard data retention window from 30 days to seven. It said it will allow data to be preserved for longer when it is evidence tied to a case number.
Law enforcement users will now also be required to enter a code from their records management system tying each search to a specific case before it is run, something Langley said civil liberties advocates have long been calling for. Overrides for emergencies would be automatically flagged for review, the company said.
Customers will also be allowed to decide which offense types — such as homicide or arson — outside agencies can search their data for, which would allow a customer to block outside searches related to immigration enforcement, the company said.
Langley said that change will give individual cities and departments control to use the system in a manner “consistent with community values.”
Critics say updates still leave room for abuses, supporters urge balance
Critics of the company reacted skeptically to the changes, which they said appeared designed to address the growing bipartisan anger about the cameras but could still leave room for police to abuse the system, calling the system’s pervasiveness something akin to warrantless mass surveillance.
The American Civil Liberties Union said in a blog post that the shortened evidence retention window could be “a step in the right direction,” but it characterized the other changes as “retreads” of inadequate safety measures.
Successes and failures have captured attention
Flock, based in Atlanta, Georgia, often posts to its website what the company deems to be everyday examples of success stories for its cameras, including finding missing seniors and catching car thieves.
But the tech has also been used in high-profile cases that have garnered national attention, such as the search for a suspect in a fatal shooting at Brown University and in tracking and arresting a former North Carolina police officer who authorities say had made threats that he planned to carry out a mass shooting at a festival in Louisiana. A grand jury declined to bring charges in that case in June, and state authorities said the former officer’s family had taken him to a treatment facility out of state where he does not face further charges.
Abuses have also drawn widespread attention. The Washington Post reported earlier this month finding nearly 50 instances of police officers charged or accused of using the cameras for unauthorized purposes, many for tracking current or former romantic partners or family members.
Just this week, six employees — including four officers — of the Savannah Police Department in Georgia were fired after they were accused of searching for friends and family using the tool and allowing an officer from an outside agency to use the city’s cameras.
The Savannah department said it was made aware of the misuse through Flock’s voluntary audit function.
A balancing act between public safety and protection of civil liberties
Despite announcing the cancellation of the contract with Flock, Salida’s police chief said his department remains committed to keeping the community safe while maintaining the trust and confidence of the people they serve.
“This decision does not lessen our commitment to investigating crime or protecting our community,” Johnson said. “Our officers will continue to use investigative tools and resources to address public safety concerns.”
Exactly what tools they will use to replace Flock license plate readers remains an unanswered question.
Opposition to the tech hasn’t only come from people speaking out against them.
Johnson, Salida’s chief of police, said the department was “disappointed to see that someone elected to approach the subject with acts of vandalism to the hardware associated with these cameras.”
“This behavior only cost the taxpayers money, and did nothing to change the policies or use of the LPR system,” Johnson said. “This type of behavior is never acceptable, regardless of which side of an issue someone stands.”
Johnson urged anyone with information about the damage to the town’s Flock cameras to contact the Salida Police Department at (719) 539-6880.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.