The Georgetown Police Department will begin using license plate scanner technology from Flock Safety following City Council’s approval March 10.
Digging deeper
The contract between GPD and Flock includes 10 fixed cameras that will capture images of vehicles and store the encrypted data for 30 days, according to city documents.
Flock cameras will be installed at “strategic” road locations, Police Chief Cory Tchida said. Images will help identify basic vehicle characteristics like color, make and model, as well as license plate numbers.
“The system does not use facial recognition and is designed specifically to identify vehicles connected to criminal activity,” Tchida said.
Flock’s internal system automatically compares license plates captured on camera to those in national and state crime databases, showing stolen vehicles and wanted persons.
Something to note
Tchida said data captured by Flock cameras will belong to the police department, and the company cannot share data with outside parties.
Many agencies in Central Texas contract with Flock for similar technology, including local police departments and the Texas Department of Public Safety. GPD will only share data with other entities that use Flock, Tchida said.
“Data sharing amongst local law enforcement is so critically important,” Tchida said. “It's kind of one of the main powers of the entire network.”
What they’re saying
District 6 council member Jake French initially expressed concern about the misuse of private data collected by the technology.
“I'm not worried about our police department, I'm not even worried about the Texas Department of Public Safety,” French said. “I'm more worried about folks in the future or larger federal agencies who may not have the same type of controls and restrictions on the data that we do.”
The department will have an outlined use policy for the internal system that addresses:
- Permitted and prohibited use
- Access management
- Allowable search reasons
- Responses
- Data sharing
- Retention
- Data ownership
- Auditing
- Training
- Penalty for misuse
“When it comes down to policy considerations of security, the greatest protection we have for the data within Flock is really policy and audit capabilities,” Tchida said.
Some context
Although private entities such as Sun City and Home Depot use Flock security systems in Georgetown, neither the city or police department have implemented the technology until now.
Flock cameras have been able to quickly narrow down suspects and decrease investigation time, including for a recent homicide in Sun City, Tchida said.
“There’s been a lot of debate about Flock, and I appreciate and understand the concerns, but ... we are all trying really hard to do this in a way that is reasonable and protects the rights of the public,” Tchida said.
