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Avon police brief council on license‑plate readers; chief outlines usage, contracts and privacy safeguards
Summary
Avon Police Chief Neil Dryfe briefed the Town Council on automated license‑plate readers (ALPRs), describing Flock camera locations, data access controls, a two‑year contract extension, and concerns about state and federal data‑sharing rules.
Avon Police Chief Neil Dryfe told the Town Council on March 5 that the department operates Flock automatic license‑plate readers (ALPRs) at two East Main Street locations and one on West Avon Road, and described the system’s function and contractual and legal constraints.
Chief Dryfe said the cameras “take a picture of every car that drives past but there is no live monitoring, it is collected into a database on a cloud server; if an officer has a valid law enforcement reason to search the database, they log in with credentials that are unique to them, they have to put the case number of the incident they are investigating and a reason to query a particular license plate.” He told councilors that the most common queries in the eight months he’s been chief are related to shoplifting and hit‑and‑run investigations.
He described a two‑year contract extension with vendor Flock signed in August 2025, at about $3,000 per camera per year; Avon operates four Flock cameras, totaling roughly $12,000 annually, and other vendors exist. Chief Dryfe also noted that some vendor camera packages include red‑light or speed‑enforcement options; Avon’s Flock cameras are not tied to speed measurement.
On privacy and data‑sharing, Dryfe described proposed state legislative changes and referenced the Connecticut Trust Act. He said Flock has a transparency portal and that the police department plans to link that portal on the town website; he also said Flock can be configured to require out‑of‑state agencies to affirm they will comply with Connecticut law before being granted access. He acknowledged public concerns about whether federal agencies have accessed Connecticut data and explained that the town has recently tightened access permissions.
Councilors thanked the chief for the briefing and asked about contract terms, other vendors, and whether the cameras were used for speed enforcement (they are not). The chief said he is happy to provide additional information to any councilor or resident.
Next steps: the Police Department will add the Flock transparency portal to its page on the town website and continue to monitor legislative changes affecting ALPR use and data sharing.
