Parish committee votes to send ordinance banning private AI surveillance cameras from parish right-of-way to full council

The Livingston Parish Ordinance Committee voted to send a draft ordinance to the full council that would prohibit private security surveillance systems — including AI-powered license-plate and vehicle-tracking networks — from being installed in parish-maintained rights of way.

Councilman Wascomb moved to forward the measure after speakers described cameras attached to sign posts and poles in parish servitudes. Resident Jacob Bridal, who said he lives on Fletcher Hill Drive in Denham Springs, testified that "every month, their system logs more than 20,000,000,000 vehicle data points," and called the networks a “dragnet.” Bridal urged four actions: a public hearing on any contract, local data-ownership language, clear law-enforcement retention policies and mandatory public audits.

Chris Gonthier, who said he had experience drafting similar ordinances elsewhere, cautioned committee members about contract language that can give vendors broad rights over customer-generated data; he told the committee that some contracts grant vendors a wide license to use collected data and do not guarantee deletion. "Once they got it, they got it," Gonthier said.

Sheriff Jason Ard told the committee the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office does not do business with Flock-style third parties and that equipment the sheriff’s office uses is locally owned and governed by policy. "Anything that we use is owned by the sheriff's office, and ... I can guarantee you that nobody's ever broken in our system," he said, adding deputies cannot run plate searches without lawful cause.

Committee members discussed the interplay between existing servitude/right-of-way rules (which prohibit fixtures in public servitudes) and the proposed ordinance language. Wascomb read the draft amending chapter 50, section 50-9 to prohibit signs and private security surveillance devices placed in parish-maintained rights of way, and suggested adding a council-approval pathway for any necessary placement in the right-of-way.

The motion to send the ordinance to the full council passed unanimously; the chair asked staff to place the item on the next council agenda. The committee’s action sends the draft for full deliberation and public notice; the ordinance was not adopted at the committee meeting and must still clear the full council and required advertisement steps before becoming law.