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Pleasant Valley aldermen raise privacy and data-use concerns over Flock camera contract
Summary
Board members discussed the city's existing contract with Flock, citing feature changes that could enable face/voice recognition and local incidents of vandalism; members asked the police chief to report on usage, metadata and auditing and requested legal review before expanding or altering the program.
Several aldermen raised privacy and security concerns about the city’s existing Flock license-plate-recognition cameras and asked for a data-use briefing and contract review. One member summarized the technology and why citizens are concerned: "What it does, it moves it looks at your license plates and then captures the vehicle details," a board member said while describing how the system operates and how metadata can be re-used.
Another alderman said some municipalities have canceled Flock contracts after the vendor introduced additional capabilities, including voice and facial recognition, and described incidents in which officers misused access. Board members cited a local instance of vandalism — a camera on Stewart Road between Pleasant Valley and Liberty was reportedly torn from its pole — as evidence of strong local sentiment and urged the chief of police to present audit logs and metadata-use reports. The board directed staff to ask the police chief to bring usage statistics, audit procedures and any access logs to a future meeting and to have the city attorney review the contract to confirm permissible features and audit requirements.
No policy or contract termination vote was held at this meeting; the discussion concluded with a direction to gather more data so the board can evaluate benefits, privacy safeguards and oversight mechanisms before making a policy decision.
