The Alliance City Council met August 4 to discuss adding Flock cameras to the City of Alliance.
Alliance Police Chief David Leavitt explained how the Flock cameras could have been used in recent cases.
“Just know that in the last three or four months, we’ve had a stolen car here in Alliance that we didn’t track down because we don’t have LPRs that work. It was tracked down in the next jurisdiction because of their LPRs. We had a homicide suspect drive right through Alliance, NE, and he didn’t get caught till he got to Rapid City because we didn’t have working LPRs,” said Leavitt.
The presentation regarding the Flock cameras was given by Bia Campbell, Public Affairs Manager for the State of Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Kansas, with Phil Arnold and Hannah Wind also in attendance from Flock.
There are two types of hardware by Flock being proposed to use in the City of Alliance.
“We’re going to talk about the hardware specifically that would be implemented in your town. It’s basically two things. The first one is the live video camera, of which you would be four solars and four cable cameras, and those are what we call PTZ and token zoom. They basically allow for video image in open spaces where you have for the solar two cameras: one with long range, one with short range, and then for the cable camera, the ability for you to circulate the camera so you can get different angles of that environment. It’s mostly used for parks and open areas, and then of course the license plate readers, which is again Flock’s bread and butter,” said Campbell.
Campbell explained that Flock is designed to support officers, not replace their judgment.
“In the end of the day, what we’re doing with body cams, with dash cams, with Flock cameras, with integrated network systems, is we’re giving the police officers the best possible tools to ensure that they have the resources to solve crimes and protect the public. If you talk to chiefs all around the country, you will unanimously hear how Flock has completely changed the game for their officers and for their investigative mechanisms and procedures internally,” said Campbell.
Campbell believes that there should be barriers and frameworks put in place that help protect against some fears.
“One thing that we always like to remind folks is that, such as with any technology, there are additional barriers and frameworks that can and should be put in place to be sure that technology is serving us and that we are protecting against some of the fears that we continue to hear, which some of them are very valid. So when we talk about data protection, when we talk about sharing, those are all policies that we can implement in the outskirts of this technology to ensure it’s being used correctly, that we are avoiding any misuse, that we are punishing misuse, and that it’s being used in sync with the community’s values and the people which it’s trying to serve. So these are some examples of protocols and laws that have been passed. With that said, I think it’s very relevant to remind you that Nebraska has one of the top privacy acts in the country, so you all already have a very robust policy environment that does protect your citizens’ data. As far as LPRs go, they can only ever be used in those instances that are listed here. So stolen vehicle license plates, missing people, warrants, traffic registration, insurance violations, and ongoing criminal investigations. In addition to that, the state’s retention period is 180 maximum, unless the data is obviously being preserved for prosecutorial reasons. In addition to that, it also requires the agencies to undergo some safeguards and accountability. So your agencies must adopt and publish a policy on how to use this technology and this mechanism. Every manual search has to have a documented reason. So I’m sure some of you might have seen the use of officers who have misused the technology to track ex-girlfriends and news that have been popping up. That’s obviously an illegal use. But in addition to the protection against illegal uses of technologies, Nebraska has this added layer where you have to have a documented reason to even conduct the search to begin with. In addition to that, the police departments in your state must submit an annual report to the state where they audit the searches that they’ve conducted, and the misuse of the technology can result both in civil liability for their offices as well as evidentiary exclusion for the criminal prosecution,” said Campbell.
City Council Member Travis Turman brought up various privacy issues relating to the cameras.
“Can your own employees view our live feeds?” asked Turman. “What about the case in Dunwoody?”
“Yeah. So we actually don’t do those anymore. We had a pilot program with a couple cities where we had Flock cameras installed with their authorization into different municipalities in the country for demo purposes. This does not exist anymore because of that reason. I think you know the company will be the first to tell you that as we continue to grow and learn, we are adapting our internal policies and procedures to ensure that cases like this do not happen. I think that instead was unfortunate all around, and we take full responsibility for our part,” said Campbell.
“Is there multi-factor authentication required for every user?” asked Turman.
“If I heard the question right, is it your officers using the system? Yes, it is required. Yes, they must use two-factor authentication to access the system,” said Phil Arnold, Public Affairs Manager.
“Has there been a solution to why Flock cameras have been live streaming on the internet openly?” asked Turman.
“So the way that we try to explain this is the comparison that I find most useful is a person hacking into the iPhone six and then saying that they have access to the whole system. So there were two cases that happened. The first one is there were 80 cameras, 80 across the whole entire country across the over 600,000 cameras that we deployed that had the incorrect shift on them, which allowed for a person to connect. All of those have been figured out, solved again. Something that the company acknowledges and has rectified since. And then there is this one YouTube video where a guy gets a flawed camera through undisclosed means, and then he hacks into it, which would be equivalent of hacking into an iPhone six and saying that you have access to the Apple iOS system, right? That’s not true. What he did was he hacked into an old model camera that was not connected to any of our systems,” said Campbell.
Public comment regarding the Flock system was varied.
Tom Broeder was concerned with the Flock cameras and privacy issues, as well as, bringing to light other cities that have completely removed the cameras.
“Okay, all computers can be hacked. It’s been proven. What is the safeguards someone like Joe Blow over here accidentally finds a backdoor to one and starts using it for illegal purposes?” asked Tom Broder.
“The information that’s in the system is public record. It’s a license plate number and a picture of a car. That’s all that’s there,” said Mayor John McGhehey.
“But as Officer Leavitt said, that you can turn these and aim them to certain directions. Would that have to be done manually, or could you do it in the station? I will turn the camera. Do it from my phone if I need. Let’s say somebody hacked it. Okay here’s X guy’s wife out in the backyard, sunbathing, and can he turn it that way?” asked Broder.
“Well, I would think the cameras would be located in public spaces, not in areas where it could be used like that,” said McGhehey.
“Okay, and also, what height would they be installed at? Because that also changes perspective where you can handle that too,” asked Broder.
“I don’t know. And again, because this is a discussion item that will come up later on time. No, it becomes an action item. So we’ll have more information at that point,” said McGhehey.
“This is the main thing, mainly protecting privacy in that. And if you look on just recently, Ord, Nebraska removed all their Flock cameras out of their area, the city limits, and that several other counties across the United States are doing it too, so they probably had to look into legal aspects. They’re doing it removing them because of the pending legal that’s changing real fast now,” said Broder.
“Did the article about Ord state why they were removing them?” asked Vice Mayor Tearza Mashburn.
“Ord became the first city in Nebraska completely rejected in order to remove all cameras from its borders, but there’s no reason why given me on that. Then it goes to let’s see. 53 cities across the 20 states have now deactivated or canceled their Flock contracts due to legal action,” said Broder.
Boone Johnson on the other hand believes the cameras to be a great idea.
“Honestly, I think this can be a great idea because after what happened in Laing Lake, I honestly think it’d be probably in our best interest to help prevent crimes like that from happening in our city ever again. After hearing about that little presentation, I’ve heard about these cameras and how they’ve helped up crimes in various other places. Sure, there’s drawbacks, but the drawbacks to any technology might, actually, not sure what that is, computers, phone, anything. Honestly, I would argue that we should probably invest into more than just six cameras or a few dozen or something like that,” said Johnson.
Alliance Police Chief David Leavitt emphasized that the Flock cameras would operate in public spaces that have no expectation of privacy.
“Everything that we’ve been discussing and debating involves cameras and license plate readers that capture things that are absolutely open to the public. You have no expectation of privacy whatsoever when you’re driving down a public street with a license plate that’s issued by the State of Nebraska or any other state, that is public information,” said Leavitt.
The City is pursuing a grant for the Flock cameras and assessing optimal locations for camera placement.