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Fountain City hears pitch for Flock Safety license‑plate cameras; council presses on privacy and cost
Summary
Flock Safety representatives and the police chief presented a proposal for a 27–28 camera license‑plate reading system; officials pressed the vendor and police on data retention (30 days), who can access footage, audit trails and an estimated $80,000 annual subscription baseline.
Fountain City council members on Tuesday heard a presentation from Flock Safety on installing a network of license‑plate readers and associated pan‑tilt‑zoom cameras that the police chief said could help recover stolen vehicles and aid investigations.
The police chief told the council that an HOA in Cumberland Green had paid for three Flock cameras and that footage helped identify and arrest two suspects in vehicle burglaries. Jonathan Paz, a Flock local government affairs representative, described the company’s Falcon LPR camera and Condor PTZ unit, saying the system captures license plates and a “vehicular fingerprint” (color, make, stickers, damage) to produce actionable investigative leads.
Paz said the company’s approach is “detect, decode, deliver,” and emphasized that Flock’s LPR service is not facial recognition and is designed with privacy safeguards: “We don’t own the data. You guys own the data and it’s deleted after 30 days,” he said. He added that searches require a justification and case number and that the system maintains an audit trail for every access.
Council members focused questions on retention, public access and department controls. Council member Rick asked whether footage that could be evidence can be extracted for prosecution; Paz answered that data can be pulled within the 30‑day retention window and added to a case file. The police chief said footage treated as evidence would be handled similarly to body‑worn camera recordings and could be copied and provided to a citizen if it is part of an investigation, but that non‑evidentiary footage will be deleted after 30 days.
On who may access the system, the chief said only sworn officers signed in to mobile data terminals and authorized station personnel would have access, and that the vendor provides a strict audit trail; misuse, he said, would lead to discipline and removal from the system. Council member Hinton confirmed that searches will require an associated case number and an officer badge identifier.
On cost, Paz said the vendor lists roughly $3,000 per camera and that the product is subscription based. The chief gave a baseline estimate for the proposed Fountain deployment of about 27–28 cameras at approximately $80,000 per year (about $160,000 for a two‑year contract), subject to modification and final contracting.
City attorney Troy told the council he had not heard of legal challenges to LPR deployments in similar circumstances and said drivers generally have lower expectations of privacy on public roadways; he flagged retention and institutional policy as the key ethical considerations. The chief said existing model policies from other agencies are available and that he would adapt them for Fountain.
The mayor thanked the presenters. Council members and staff said they would send follow‑up questions to the chief before any procurement or contract decision.
