JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Flock announced privacy changes amid backlash over the AI-powered license plate readers.
The updated privacy, accountability, security and transparency safeguards aim to tackle ongoing privacy concerns throughout the country.
Flock’s automated license plate readers — or ALPR cameras — will now be shortening their data retention period from 30 days to seven.
They’re also introducing “Offense Filtering” for sharing, allowing cities to specify which offenses are permissible for other agencies to access their cameras.
One of the biggest changes, however, comes with law enforcement’s new requirement to use a feature called “Audit Assist.” This feature requires case numbers to look up certain information and can detect abnormal activity consistent with system abuse.
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Still, the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project’s Senior Policy Analyst Jay Stanley argues that these safeguards aren’t enough.
“What they do is they record ordinary people who are not suspected of any crimes or other wrongdoing, and keep track of where they’re driving and when,” Stanley said. “When you create a surveillance system, it is going to be abused not only by individual police officers but sometimes by whole departments.”
But some people, like Lori Bronner and Justin Osborn, argue that the surveillance is worth it to prevent crime.
“Most people think that they’re tracking you, and Big Brother-ing, but technically, companies know more about you,” Bronner said. “But the records are very short term and termination, so they’ll delete after a certain period of time, so, there’s no way to track everything in the long term.”
“It helps law enforcement quite a bit. They’re used all the time,” Osborn said. “You don’t notice it, but it will help you if you had a missing child, or you know, a stolen car.”
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Action News Jax asked the Jacksonville, St. Johns and Nassau County Sheriff’s Offices about the new rules. We also reached out to Jax Beach Police, but no one was available to speak with us on camera.
However, Jax Beach PD did share that they fully believe in the system and are open to any changes that could prevent misuse of the cameras.
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