DENVER — Months after the Denver City Council rejected a contract extension for the Flock camera system, a newly formed task force is set to begin meeting soon to discuss the future of the license plate recognition technology in the city.
"We've heard a number of concerns from members of the community, as well as members of council, around the Flock cameras over the last few months. Some of those concerns are well-founded, and we've been working through their concerns," said Jon Ewing, a spokesperson with the Denver Mayor's Office. "We really wanted to bring everyone to the table, talk through them. We want to explain our perspective on why we feel these are important tools for law enforcement, for preventing crime, for stopping crime very early, and also work through any questions and concerns."
Back in May, city council members nixed the more than $600,000 contract extension with Flock Safety. That contract would've extended the technology's use in Denver through 2027.
- Review the contract extension below
Denver City Council Member Sarah Parady raised concerns over privacy with the technology, which led to the creation of a task force.
On Thursday, Ewing told Denver7 the list of departments, organizations, and individuals on the task force was nearly finalized. Below are those who are expected to be a part of the task force:
- Denver Mayor's Office
- Denver Police Department
- Denver City Attorney's Office
- Council Member Sarah Parady
- Council Member Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez
- Council Member Kevin Flynn
- ACLU of Colorado
- Electronic Freedom Foundation
- Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition
- Office of the Independent Monitor
- Citizen Oversight Board
- A few private Denver citizens
"I really like [the technology], and I think the people like it," Denver City Council Member Kevin Flynn said. "It's been effective in reducing the number of crimes."
Flynn told Denver7 he's a proponent of license plate readers, but wants to make sure a middle ground is met.
"I have been one of the council's strongest advocates for public safety for the 10 years now that I've been there, and so I have that perspective that people want the city to provide a certain, not a guarantee, but a certain level of effort when it comes to maintaining safety," he said. "I want to be able to preserve that tool for law enforcement to be able to use with safeguards so that it's not improperly used. I think there are ways to get there."
"I think we can get there by building into the interface an absolute requirement that you can't just write a narrative of why you're looking at it," Flynn added.
Flynn believes the system should be "auditable and trackable, so that if mischief does occur, we can pin it to a certain document." He said he's not concerned with the technology being used for immigration enforcement, because he believes "if ICE agents are after somebody, why would they put their license plate into the Flock system? If they have their license plate, they know where they live, they know their address, so it seems kind of pointless."
Denver7 has extensively covered license plate readers and the controversy surrounding them. Read our previous coverage below:
- Denver City Council rejects contract expansion for license plate recognition cameras in the city
- Douglas County sheriff defends Flock cameras following Denver's decision to reject contract extension
- License plate reader remains hot-button issue in Denver | Denver7 Investigates
- Denver citizens, advocates speak out against automated license plate readers, call for changes
Anaya Robinson, policy director for the ACLU of Colorado, is also on the task force, but is against the use of the Flock cameras.
"We would love to see those cameras turned off entirely until there are policies in place to regulate the use of them outside of simply Denver police saying, 'Well, we won't use it for this,' or the contract saying, 'Well, we can't use it for that,' when we know contracts can be renegotiated on an ongoing basis," Robinson told Denver7. "There isn't that transparency, there isn't that public input period, right?"
Robinson believes there needs to be more policy surrounding what can and can't be done with Flock cameras before the city makes a decision about the technology.
"There needs to be real transparency about where the cameras are, how they're being used, who the data is being shared with, if anyone," he said. "There needs to be some data retention requirements there, right? Flock says that they only keep the data for 30 days, but there is nothing in law right now that makes it so that they can't change their mind tomorrow."
The Denver Police Department and other city leaders maintain that the technology has been useful for them. According to Denver PD, the license plate readers have led to 353 arrests, 251 recovered stolen vehicles and 39 recovered firearms as of August 12.
While city council members nixed the contract extension back in May, the city did extend the camera's usage for a few months while it created the task force. Ewing said it's a race against time to determine next steps.
"We do need to have that conversation sooner rather than later because the clock is ticking on this," he said. "We extended the contract by however much we could. While we could keep the conversation going, we're not interested in doing that long-term. That's not transparent."
