Amid a wide-ranging discussion of legislative priorities with local implications – including data centers, sustainable outdoor recreation and taxes on vacant properties – the Gunnison Board of County Commissioners weighed the tradeoffs of sharing personal information through Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras.
According to Gunnison County Sheriff Adam Murdie, Gunnison County has partnered with the city to utilize Flock Safety cameras in five locations throughout the city and county. Numerous municipalities throughout the country have recently suspended use of the cameras or sought to limit the ways they share personal information. Atlanta-based Flock Safety advertises the technology as an advanced, 24/7 method to “solve and eliminate crime.”
But privacy concerns plague the cameras, too. The nationwide Flock Safety database allows law enforcement to search for information without a warrant.
Immigrations and Custom Enforcement has utilized Flock’s nationwide database of driver information as part of immigration crackdowns in various communities, including ones in Colorado. Instances of law enforcement officers using Flock cameras to stalk private citizens, including estranged or ex-partners, have been documented in Kansas, Georgia and Wisconsin. Law enforcement also used Flock data across multiple states to investigate a Texas woman who received a self-administered abortion. Though the procedure is illegal in Texas, the search accessed data from other states where abortion is legal.
In Gunnison County, where Flock cameras have been active for a few years, the county commissioners are exploring how to balance the assistance ALPR cameras provide to law enforcement with the privacy concerns.
“It is a tool to help AMBER alerts, missing kids, seniors with memory problems when they hop in their car and just start driving and being able to say they went to the east side of town or the west side of town, being able to cooperate with our neighboring counties,” said Commissioner Jonathan Houck. “Colorado led the country in stolen vehicles, and this tool has been able to bring down that rate by identifying, by using this technology to go, ‘that car was reported stolen, that car passed by here, or here, or here.’ It gives law enforcement a leg up to apprehend someone who’s stolen vehicles, to find children, to find missing seniors.”
The Board debated the prevalence of misuse among Flock camera users. Chairperson Laura Puckett Daniels said she had “less of a concern about where is the camera pointing, and more of a concern about who has access to the things the camera is picking up and what is happening to that info once it is picked up and stored.”
She voiced concern for reports out of Minnesota, where she said ICE agents had used ALPRs to create databases of legal protestors’ identifying information. But she also said, “There are bad actors in every single profession…There’s always going to be people who misuse the system.”
The Board also considered the on-the-ground implementation challenges of working to limit information sharing via ALPRs. In rural and small-town communities such as Gunnison County, they argued, it would be hard to come by the resources, staff and funding to implement and maintain new protocols around surveillance cameras.
“I think everyone’s worried about the surveillance state,” said Houck. “We all have cell phones. A number of people have Ring cameras…I think it’s important to be thoughtful, but I think it’s also important to be realistic.”
Editor Bret Anne Serbin can be reached at 970-329-5834, or editor@gunnisontimes.com.
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