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Human Rights Commission hears widespread public opposition to Flock automated license‑plate readers
Summary
Dozens of public commenters urged the Eugene Human Rights Commission to recommend canceling the city's contract with Flock Safety ahead of a City Council work session scheduled Oct. 8. Speakers raised privacy, civil‑liberties and public‑safety concerns and asked the commission to forward a recommendation to council.
Dozens of residents and community groups told the Eugene Human Rights Commission on Wednesday that the city should terminate its contract with Flock Safety, the company that provides automated license‑plate readers (ALPRs) installed around the city.
The commission heard public comment from organizers, legal advocates and clinicians who said Flock enables sweeping surveillance, can be used by federal agencies for immigration enforcement, and risks civil‑liberty harms for vulnerable groups. "Flock is an unconstitutional dragnet that violates the Fourth Amendment," said Pete Goldlust, a public commenter who cited a letter from the Civil Liberties Defense Center. "This system conducts a vast and ongoing data grab of people's comings and goings."
The most detailed public comments came from Cameron Stringfield, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, who urged the commission to advise City Council to end the contract and remove the cameras. "This system is also managed by AI ... [and] mismatches license plate numbers 10% of the time," Stringfield said, adding that misidentification can lead to unnecessary or dangerous police encounters.
Staff presented procedural context: the council will receive information about the Flock deployment at a council work session on Oct. 8. Fabio, a city staff member who presented other agenda items at the meeting, told the commission he would include a summary of the public comments in follow‑up materials and pass commissioners' questions to City staff and Eugene Police Department (EPD). "We will include summary of the public comments in our follow‑up message," Fabio said.
Commissioners did not vote on a formal recommendation at the meeting. Several commissioners asked for the topic to be expedited to a work group so the commission could prepare a statement for the council work session. One commissioner noted the police commission and EPD have previously discussed the technology; EPD representatives were not present at this meeting and Lieutenant Williams, the usual EPD liaison, was absent and will be asked to present EPD's updates at the October meeting.
Public commenters also raised legal and financial risks tied to the system and pointed to national examples where ALPR data has been used for immigration enforcement and to locate people seeking out‑of‑state reproductive care. Multiple written comments submitted to the record echoed those concerns.
The commission agreed to include public comment summaries in its follow‑up to council and to refer rapid drafting of a statement to the homelessness & poverty work group and other appropriate subcommittees for consideration ahead of Oct. 8.
Commissioners and staff also asked that the formal public record, including written statements submitted to humanrights@eugeneor.gov and the meeting transcript, be shared with council and the police commission ahead of that work session.
Next steps: the HRC asked staff to collect the public comment record, share it with commissioners, and coordinate with the work group to prepare a possible recommendation to City Council before or at the council work session.
