Hutto City Council decided to discontinue the police department’s use of 10 Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras during a Sept. 18 meeting.
What happened
Hutto Police Chief Jeffrey Yarbrough said the city turned off and took down the cameras ahead of the vote.
According to the city, the Hutto Police Department identified concerns that partner agencies accessing information from the system are not bound by HPD's own policies governing that data. Developments in artificial intelligence technology also raised questions, city staff said.
What they’re saying
Yarbrough said the department weighed whether it would be a dealbreaker to not have the cameras, and whether they provided a level of investigatory value to the point that the department could not function without them. However, he said that was not the case.
“Flock is a valuable tool and we value the opportunity to use that tool,” Yarbrough told Community Impact. “We value the successes that we've had with that platform, but we also value the concerns that the public has and some of the concerns that we've seen as a department.”
Without information provided by Flock cameras, Yarbrough said investigators will rely on the department's other resources and methods to continue solving cases and protecting the community.
“We're going to continue to rely on our law enforcement partners,” Yarbrough said. “The difference is, it may make the investigatory efforts a bit more cumbersome.”
The background
Flock ALPRs capture still images of vehicles on public roads and use artificial intelligence to log license plates and vehicle details.
Over the past few weeks, the city of Pflugerville voted not to renew its Flock contract, Bastrop ended its Flock contract, Liberty Hill removed its Flock cameras and Leander discontinued Flock services.
