Sheriff's surveillance cameras have been popping up on Polk roads. What are they watching?
Residents are seeing new solar-powered cameras being installed on black poles at residential intersections in North Lakeland, without any warning. It's raising questions about privacy.
The Polk County Sheriff's Office first signed a five-year contract with Flock Group Inc., known as Flock Safety, on Feb. 16, 2021, with an option to extend for one year, according to records obtained by The Ledger.
Flock Safety is an Atlanta-based company that sells automatic license plate detection readers, or ALPRs for short, to law enforcement agencies, schools, neighborhood homeowners associations and businesses. Its website says more than 2,000 law enforcement agencies across the nation have deployed its cameras in more than 2,500 communities. Flock claims its cameras help reduce crime by more than 70%.
Since 2021, there have been an unknown number of solar-powered automatic license plate readers installed on Polk County roads. The Sheriff's Office repeatedly redacted the number of cameras purchased in public-information requests. Some are mounted on conspicuous black poles at intersections in plain sight, while others are put up in a way to be concealed by more common road signs.
The Sheriff's Office would not discuss with The Ledger anything about Flock Safety or the recent installation of the license-plate readers. It cited an exemption to Florida Sunshine Laws for "any information revealing surveillance techniques or procedures," according to PCSO spokeswoman Carrie Horstman.
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What's Flock Safety do?
A redacted 10-page service agreement between the Sheriff's Office and Flock Safety offers some insight. It reads the cameras will be used "...in order to create, view, search and archive footage and receive notification, including those from non-agency users of [company name redacted] (where there is an investigative purpose), such as schools, neighborhood homeowner associations, businesses and individual users."
Flock Safety's website says its cameras have a patented "Vehicle Fingerprint" technology that collects visual, environmental and contextual information such as:
Timestamp and geolocation.
Vehicle type, make, color, license plate.
Any unique features such as a roof rack, bumper and window stickers.
The number of times a particular vehicle has been seen in the past 30 day.
Any "associated vehicles."
It's not clear how long Flock Safety stores this personal information on its database. The Sheriff's Office redacted that information in several spots, though a mention on page 5 of the contract reads Flock "will automatically delete footage older than 30 days. Agency has a 90-day window to view, save and/or transmit footage to relevant government agency prior to its deletion."
Data collected from scanned vehicles is a uploaded to Flock's database 24/7, in real-time, according to its website. This evidence is then searchable by any of the system's users in a national database, where private camera owners can create their own "hot list" to generate an alarm when listed license plates are spotted, in addition to running against state police watch lists, the FBI's criminal database and the National Crime Information Center's database.
In its contract, Flock Safety warns the Sheriff's Office the equipment is "solely to facilitate gathering evidence that could be used in a criminal investigation by the appropriate government agency and not for tracking activities that the system is not designed to capture..."
What's it cost?
Documents indicate Flock Safety's leases its equipment for "$2,000 per camera per year, or current market pricing if lower" in addition to one-time implementation fees that cover site assessment to determine camera locations, shipping and handling and installation fees.
In February 2021, the Sheriff's Office signed a services agreement where it has redacted the number of cameras leased for five years and no installation fee. A government agency customer agreement wasn't signed between Flock and Polk County until September 2022.
In 2022, the Sheriff's Office appears to have initially paid $82,000 — the price for 41 cameras — with a one-time standard implementation fee of $14,350 for a total of $96,350 in the first year. It will pay $82,000 on an ongoing annual basis, as per the September 2022 agreement.
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Since then, there have been multiple additional service agreements between Flock and the Sheriff's Office, although the Sheriff's Office redacted information on the agency's contact person, contact information and quantity of cameras on several purchase agreements:
In December, a purchase agreement costing $11,750 indicates a one-time implementation fee and $10,000 recurring, indicating five additional cameras were purchased.
In January, another agreement for $4,000 annually indicates two cameras were added.
In June, a Flock Safety order form signed by the Sheriff's Office cites a total cost of $158,750 after a $75,000 discount was given. Roughly $8,750 of the total cost was one-time fees, including shipping and handling, site assessment, camera setup and testing. It cites a $50,000 annual recurring cost for software and hardware indicating another 25 cameras were purchased under a three-year contract, with a two-year renewal.
In all, there appears to be at least 73 Flock cameras installed across Polk County, based on the Sheriff's Office's initial contract and the additional agreements. Because the contract allows Polk County to extend the agreement to its contracted local municipal law enforcement agencies to use the cameras and its software, it's impossible to track where the cameras are going and to whom.
Flock Safety comes under fire
Other Florida law enforcement agencies have come under fire for using using automated license plate readers, including Flock Safety's system.
Nearby, Lake County commissioners ordered Lake County Sheriff's Office to remove 100 Flock Safety cameras installed as part of a pilot program in August 2021, as Click Orlando reported. The cameras were installed to assist with Amber Alerts or vehicle thefts. But commissioners said it was "shocking," that many of them didn't know the cameras were in place.
Marco Island is facing a lawsuit from three residents filed in February 2022 for deploying at least three systems since April 2021, as Courthouse News Services reports. The case is still making its way through the courts.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida published an online guide "How to Pump the Brakes on Your Police Department's Use of Flock's Mass Surveillance License Plate Readers" in February, citing Flock as the first company to create a nationwide mass-surveillance system.
"If the police or government leaders are pushing for Flock or another centralized mass-surveillance [automatic license plate reader] system in your community, we urge you to opposite it, full stop," reads ALCU's website.
The organization clearly states it doesn't oppose the automated license pate readers, but finds it objectionable how Flock's system tracks people's coming and goings. It suggests local residents push for their agencies to encourage customized contract changes that reduce Flock's data storage from 30 to 3 days, or as little as three minutes.
Florida's law on license plate data
There is no specific Florida law guiding how personal information obtained from automatic license plate readers is kept, accessed or how long it's stored. Florida Rep. John Snyder, R-Stuart, sponsored House Bill 1641, which aimed to create a framework for state law enforcement using automatic license plate readers while ensuring residents' privacy.
"It's more a pro-active bill on what's proven to work and to try to implement a statewide system as more agencies use ALPRS and it becomes more prevalent so we can cut off potential abuses," he said.
Florida has the DAVID system, which is how law enforcement officials access driver's license information, license plates and other vehicle information. The system provides certain safeguards and puts penalties in place if the rules are abused, Snyder said.
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Snyder said he hoped to see something similar for ALPRs modeled off the DAVID system, but his bill died in committee. He's not sure whether he'll file it again next session, but is sure it's an issue that will come up again.
"I am having conversations with stakeholders and law enforcement groups around the state to continue to learn more," he said.
Snyder had not heard of Flock Safety and said he did not consider a camera system that has its own nationwide network. It's a topic he said he'd have to look into and consider further.
Sara-Megan Walsh can be reached at swalsh@theledger.com or 863-802-7545. Follow on Twitter @SaraWalshFl.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Flock Safety vehicle tag-reading cameras pop up across Polk County
