Opponent says she discovered provisions in Burlington’s contract with Flock that allows the company to share data with other agencies and government agencies – beyond the 30-day window for which Burlington saves any data collected
The opposition to Flock cameras in Burlington became a little more focused this week as two residents who’ve previously confronted the city’s leaders about this technology returned with a more calibrated set of objections.
Earlier this year, Ilsa Spaan and Mike Barone made separate forays before Burlington’s city council to voice some rather wide-ranging concerns and suspicions about the proliferation of these cameras in the community.
On Tuesday, Spaan and Barone returned to Burlington’s city hall with a bevy of other concerned residents, and this time, the pair seemed better versed on how the city’s police force uses these cameras to detect license plates linked to criminal cases and missing person reports.
But if anyone thought that this increased familiarity had turned these skeptics into believers, they would’ve been quickly disabused of that notion by Spaan’s opening remarks.
“What the Flock, Burlington?!” Spaan declared as she approached the podium during the council’s designated public comment period on Tuesday.
“So, just because the city doesn’t save the data for more than 30 days, and Flock says that it doesn’t save or share the data, it doesn’t mean that our personal data isn’t saved in perpetuity on servers for federal and other government agencies to act upon. This is not a left or right issue. It is a personal privacy issue. These cameras scare me and make me question my love for Burlington.”
– Burlington resident Ilsa Spaan
The “Flock” in Spaan’s rhetorical inquiry is a short-hand reference to Atlanta-based Flock Safety. One of several technology firms that market AI-enabled surveillance equipment, Flock Safety is perhaps best known for its automated license plate readers, which police departments in Burlington and elsewhere have embraced as the latest breakthrough in law enforcement technology.
These license plate readers are currently used by the police forces in Gibsonville and Graham as well as Elon University’s campus police and some private property owners like Lowe’s Home Improvement. Yet, within the confines of Alamance County, Burlington’s array of 31 Flock cameras is easily the most conspicuous, and it is credited by the city’s police department with tracking down fugitives, locating missing persons, and enabling officers to identify and recover at least 64 stolen vehicles.
Spaan acknowledged that, since her initial appearance before the council in June, Burlington’s police chief Alan Balog has given her a personal tour of the control room where a select group of his officers manage the data from these devices. Under departmental protocols, this data is retained for just 30 days – a point that Spaan conceded in her remarks to the council.
Spaan also commended the police department for providing her with a copy of its contract with Flock Safety. Yet, it was her perusal of this very document that seems to have summoned her misgivings back up with a vengeance.
“What I discovered is that within the Flock contract,” Spaan told the council, “are provisions that allow this data to be shared with other agencies and governmental organizations that do not have to honor the 30-day retention period.”
Spaan went on to quote one lengthy clause that gives Flock Safety “a perpetual license to access, share, view, record, duplicate, store, save, reproduce, modify, display, and distribute” the customer’s data.
“So, just because the city doesn’t save the data for more than 30 days, and Flock says that it doesn’t save or share the data, it doesn’t mean that our personal data isn’t saved in perpetuity on servers for federal and other government agencies to act upon,” she warned. “This is not a left or right issue. It is a personal privacy issue. These cameras scare me and make me question my love for Burlington.”
The council received some additional words of caution from Barone, who keyed in on the corporation behind this controversial surveillance technology.
“My opinion is that Flock is probably the most hated company in the country. This is not an anti-police issue. It is about what Flock is doing with the data.”
– burlington resident Mike Barone
“My opinion is that Flock is probably the most hated company in the country,” he told the city’s elected leaders. “This is not an anti-police issue. It is about what Flock is doing with the data.”
These reproofs of Burlington’s Flock cameras did not go down easily with city councilman Jeff Smythe, who had once served as Burlington’s chief of police before his ascent to the dais.
At the end of Tuesday’s proceedings, Smythe delivered a prepared statement of own in support of the police department’s use of automated license plate readers. Smythe recalled that he came to know an earlier generation of this same technology when he served as the police chief in Show Lo, Arizona before his arrival in Burlington.
“When I became Burlington’s police chief in 2013, I brought that experience with me and a belief that a carefully selected technology can help officers accomplish more with the resources available to them. Burlington has used license plate reader technology for more than a decade. It has become an important investigative tool. . . It can provide leads that officers might otherwise miss and help officers locate people who need assistance.
“It prohibits using the system to identify people participating in activities protected by the First Amendment. Searches must have a documented authorized purpose. . . The [city’s current police] chief has also reported that searches are subject to auditing and review, and that no instances of misuse have been identified.”
– Burlington city councilman and former police chief Jeff Smythe
“When I became Burlington’s police chief in 2013, I brought that experience with me,” he added, “and a belief that a carefully selected technology can help officers accomplish more with the resources available to them. Burlington has used license plate reader technology for more than a decade. It has become an important investigative tool. . . It can provide leads that officers might otherwise miss and help officers locate people who need assistance.”
Smythe went on to describe some of the procedural guardrails that the police department uses to control access to data from its license plate readers.
“It prohibits using the system to identify people participating in activities protected by the First Amendment,” he continued. “Searches must have a documented authorized purpose…The [city’s current police] chief has also reported that searches are subject to auditing and review, and that no instances of misuse have been identified.
“Those safeguards matter,” the councilman summed up. “My position is that we should retain this tool, require strong safeguards, and hold our police department accountable for using it properly.”
