Covington weighs expanding license‑plate camera network amid emerging state limits

Covington — Law‑enforcement staff told the council that the city’s use of license‑plate readers (Flock) has provided investigative leads and helped recover stolen vehicles, and the council gave staff cautious direction to explore adding cameras while monitoring pending state legislation.

A sheriff’s office representative described the system as still‑image capture rather than continuous video, with standard 30‑day retention by the vendor and restrictions on use (no facial recognition and no traffic enforcement). He summarized investigative outcomes, including the claim that “our auto theft was down 44% last year,” and said the cameras had contributed to dozens of arrests and investigative leads. He cautioned that proposed state legislation would narrow allowed searches to felony offenses, shorten retention (the bill text then on file set 21 days), and restrict what data can be ingested from private parties without a warrant — all of which would limit the cameras’ usefulness for lower‑level crimes such as organized retail theft.

Council members pointed to the public‑safety trade‑offs; several supported studying expansion so the city could better cover ingress points and construction sites, while others urged waiting to see final state language and to budget for any hardware and staffing needs. Staff noted recurring overhead from public‑disclosure requests and recommended budgeting for those costs if the city expands the network.

Next steps: staff will prepare a budget‑level estimate and implementation options and will continue to track and comment on the state legislative process; council did not authorize immediate procurement but asked staff to return with options and estimated costs.