Council hears that Flock neighborhood cameras send license-plate photos to company, with limited local access

A presenter described details of a neighborhood-watch pilot that uses Flock cameras, saying the devices take near-instant photographs of license plates and transmit those images to the company's headquarters rather than storing them locally.

"Until we started using Flock cameras, I had assumed that they were taking film. But, I've learned in the litigation that they are actually more like your phone camera where they're just taking snapshots," the staff member said. The speaker added that the images are transmitted electronically to Flock headquarters and that local users do not have direct access to the photos. The speaker said retrieval of a record by Flock requires a license-plate number or other identifying features of the vehicle captured.

The presenter described the Norfolk role in the pilot as limited to allowing placement of the cameras in the public right-of-way — specifically, on the grass strip in the Lock Haven neighborhood — at the request of a Civic League neighborhood-watch group. The speaker said the pilot includes "two or three" cameras in that location.

The transcript excerpt shows uncertainty about where the company headquarters is located; the speaker said they could not recall whether it was in Chicago or California. No formal council action or vote on the pilot was recorded in the provided segments, and the excerpt does not show any changes to city policy or an ordinance. The discussion, as recorded, focused on how the system works, who can access images and the limited, city-authorized placement of cameras in the right-of-way.