In August, League City City Council voted to put a question on the November ballot about whether the city should use Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras.
Now, the city has authorized a Citizen Data Privacy Committee to consider public concerns and make recommendations for city policies regarding the cameras.
What residents should know
League City City Council voted unanimously at its Sept. 22 meeting to approve the first reading of an ordinance to create a citizen-led committee which would authorize and review results of an audit on the city’s use of the cameras.
The committee would also consider public concerns and make recommendations concerning privacy protections, accountability, data security and responsible use of the Flock Safety system, according to city documents.
The committee will have five members, including the mayor, a city auditor and three citizen members appointed by City Council, according to city documents. The mayor and auditor will be non-voting members.
What they’re saying
Council member Tom Crews said he would support adding a police officer to the committee, but also wanted to ensure that only citizens would be voting members.
“If it’s the citizens committee, we really ought to have all the citizens do the voting,” Crews said.
Another point of view
Council member Andy Mann called the national discourse around Flock cameras “dumb” and asked why citizens weren’t as concerned about private data collected by the banking and healthcare industries.
Mann said those other industries protect customers’ privacy through auditing and thanked Long for putting the item on the agenda, saying it would be a step toward the city setting up policies that equip law enforcement with effective tools while ensuring accountability through auditing how collected data is used.
“Blindly trusting a bureaucracy is dumb, but blinding the cops is actually dumber,” Mann said.
Why it matters
Long said he felt the city was currently equipped to discipline clear misuse of the cameras and collected data by the police department, but not equipped to investigate potential abuses of the data outside the city’s control, such as by Flock Safety.
“Frankly, I don’t know if we’re equipped to figure that out, but we’re going to give it a try,” Long said.
In case you missed it
Dozens of residents spoke either in favor of or against allowing residents to vote on the city’s Flock camera policy at League City City Council’s Aug. 11 meeting, before council members voted 6-1 to call a special election on Nov. 3 to hold a referendum on the issue, according to previous reporting by Community Impact.
However, the election results will be non-binding, meaning League City City Council will retain the authority to determine the city’s policy on Flock cameras, regardless of the outcome.
Looking ahead
City Council will vote on the ordinance’s second reading at its Oct. 13 meeting, according to city documents.
If the official canvassed results of the Nov. 3 election show the majority of the votes cast on the proposition favor discontinuing the city’s use of the Flock Safety system, the committee will dissolve after conducting a final audit, according to city documents.
