Pleasant Valley debates Flock ALPR use, retention and monthly audits

Pleasant Valleys police described several recent cases in which automatic-license-plate-reader (ALPR) data from the vendor Flock helped identify suspects and recover stolen vehicles, and urged the council to retain the system as a crime-fighting tool.

A presenter said the system does not use facial recognition, does not stream live video to officers, and that the city retains ownership of its ALPR data even though it is stored on the vendors servers. He acknowledged that data breaches are possible with any technology and said the department plans to set the systems retention to seven days in alignment with Flocks updated recommendation, while keeping query logs available longer for audit purposes.

Members of the council pressed for clearer audit processes tying individual queries to case numbers, questioned whether a seven-day image retention would permit an effective monthly audit, and asked whether Flocks evidence-mode (which can lock images beyond retention) and offense-filtering for sharing are available and configurable for the city. Staff agreed to ask Flock about technical capabilities (7-day retention plus long-term audit logs, evidence lock, add-on integrations) and to return with recommendations for a standardized monthly audit, supervisor review and any policy changes.

"We own our own data. It's stored on their servers. It gets deleted after 30 days. Flock actually just came out with a new security deal where they're going to recommend and default to 7 days. We will go along with that," one department speaker said during the presentation. Council members suggested a supervisory audit cadence, tying queries to case numbers, and clarifying what information remains in audit logs after image deletion.