The City of Tempe, Arizona, recently announced it terminated its contract with Flock Safety. The company produces Flock Cameras, the solar-powered automated license plate readers that collect vehicle data points like license plates, make and model and even unique identifiers like bumper stickers and vehicle damage. The collected data is used by law enforcement and neighborhood associations.
Tempe is one of more than five Valley cities to terminate its contract with the company following reports of police officer misconduct.
Attorney Robert McWhirter joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss Flock Camera operations and the current controversy surrounding them.
“They’re supposed to be used for law enforcement. Somebody commits a crime, they can kind of triangulate where this is and get the camera information and have you video evidence of what occurred,” McWhirter said.
There are concerns of misuse from police officers using the cameras to track former spouses and partners.
McWhirter said the problem isn’t the surveillance of the public, but the issue of where the footage is stored after recording.
“[The footage] sits around in a database, presumably, forever,” McWhirter said.
The concern is who has access to this data and if it can be hacked and misused, McWhirter said.
90 cities in the U.S. have chosen to end their contracts with Flock Safety over the issue of safety and privacy in August alone, McWhirter said.
