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Residents press council over Flock ALPR use; police say audits, new tools coming
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Summary
Multiple residents criticized the city's use of Flock automated license-plate readers and urged stricter oversight; police chief described new audit measures, training and an imminent anomaly-detection feature to strengthen accountability.
Residents and advocacy groups used the audience participation period and the police briefing to press Thornton council and staff for greater transparency and limits on automated license-plate reader (ALPR) systems provided by Flock Safety.
Chris Cook, speaking during public comment, described widely reported out-of-jurisdiction uses of ALPR data and warned that the network can enable unintended law-enforcement searches. "Because of FLOCK, there is no escape for her," Cook said, describing a case in which ALPR records were used across jurisdictions.
Other residents echoed privacy concerns and asked that councils require strict audit controls and limits on agency access. Several speakers urged the city to hold a technical public briefing specifically on Flock and to reconsider data-sharing agreements.
At the staff report, Police Chief Jim Baird told council that the department is updating its auditing practices and that a new Flock tool for detecting anomalies in audit logs had been released. He said the department is planning training and expects the new audit features to become part of their oversight. "We plan to use that tool to forward some of the other audit discussions that we had," Baird said.
Councilmember Russell, who earlier said his public remarks had helped secure a meeting with Flock’s vice president, told residents he had productive discussions with the vendor. "There was agreement," Russell said about improvements discussed with the company.
The council asked staff to continue community engagement and to schedule additional public sessions that would let residents question police staff directly about policy, audits and access controls. Chief Baird agreed to follow up with a community meeting and public notices about new audit features and training.
What to watch: the police department has signaled it will implement vendor-provided anomaly detection and expand audit staffing and training; the community has requested a dedicated public forum on Flock and LPR use.
