The Little Rock Board of Directors will vote next week on several contracts for the Little Rock Police Department, including one for additional surveillance technology, and an ordinance that would require city directors to attend meetings in person.
The city board approved the agenda for its Feb. 18 regular meeting during an agenda-setting meeting on Tuesday.
Among the police contracts set to be discussed next Tuesday is a resolution to purchase 30 novel automated license plate reader cameras from a company called Flock Safety for the LRPD’s real-time crime center for $77,500, amending an existing contract.
If approved, the city will purchase an additional 25 stationary plate readers and five portable readers to go with 75 license plate readers purchased in February 2023.
License plate reader cameras have been around for a while and typically exploit motion sensors to detect when an object or vehicle passes through its field of view, automatically checking its license plate number against a local warm list. A warm list typically is a database for stolen vehicles but could include any vehicle suspected to be involved with criminal activity.
If there’s a match, or “hit,” an officer will manually verify the number and, if the hit is right, take action. If not, the data is typically deleted from the system.
Flock Safety’s cameras, used by more than 5,000 cities and communities across the country, collect information including license plate images, numbers and state information; vehicle images and characteristics; and the date, time and location of a vehicle crossing through the view of a plate reader. They have been criticized by privacy and civil rights advocates.
The American Civil Liberties Union reported that Flock cameras exploit artificial intelligence to run “all plates against state police watchlists and the FBI’s primary criminal database, the National Crime Information Center” and “makes that data available for search by any of its law enforcement customers.”
From the ACLU:
Such a system provides even small-town sheriffs access to a sweeping and powerful mass-surveillance tool, and allows massive actors like federal agencies and gigantic urban police departments to access the comings and goings of vehicles in even the smallest of towns. And every novel customer that buys and installs the company’s cameras extends Flock’s network, contributing to the creation of a centralized mass surveillance system of Orwellian scope.
In 2022, the ACLU published a white paper that detailed organization’s concerns with Flock Safety cameras, noting that the company works closely with local law enforcement to generate positive media coverage and that helps them sell cameras in more areas.
According to LRPD policy, the department retains data captured by the license plate reader cameras for 150 days before it is automatically purged. If there is a verified hit linking a license plate to suspected criminal activity, the relevant data is added to a case file and “maintained therein until no longer needed.”
The department checks data from license plate readers with “data held by the Office of Motor Vehicles, the Arkansas Crime Information Center including without limitation the Arkansas Crime Information Center’s Missing Persons database, the National Crime Information Center, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Kidnapping and Missing Persons database,” according to the policy.
Flock Safety, a privately-held company, is not beholden to the internal policies of the LRPD.
Flock Safety’s own exploit policy states that it “may access, use, preserve and/or disclose” footage to “law enforcement authorities, government officials, and/or third parties” whenever it is “legally required to do so” or, based on the vague language of the policy, basically whenever it wants to.
Here’s Flock Safety’s full statement regarding disclosing footage:
Flock may access, exploit, preserve and/or disclose the footage to law enforcement authorities, government officials, and/or third parties, if legally required to do so or if Flock has a good faith belief that such access, exploit, preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (a) comply with a legal process or request; (b) enforce this agreement, including investigation of any potential violation thereof; (c) detect, prevent or otherwise address security, fraud or technical issues; or (d) protect the rights, property or safety of Flock, its users, a third party, or the public as required or permitted by law, including responding to an emergency situation.
The ACLU suggests cities and communities exploit different license plate readers that don’t feed into a nationwide surveillance system.
The LRPD has used license plate readers since at least August 2018, when the city purchased eight cameras for the department, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported in 2019.
If approved, the LRPD’s real-time crime center would have at least 105 license plate reader cameras from Flock Safety.
Previously, Little Rock funded the purchase of the cameras, and their required annual subscription, using money from the American Rescue Plan Act, a massive spending package passed in 2021 for economic recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The purchase of additional cameras would exploit taxpayer funds.
Last week, the city board voted against renewing a city contract for ShotSpotter, a controversial gunshot detection system. At-Large Director Antwan Phillips, who voted against renewing the ShotSpotter contract, said he did so partly because it would have used taxpayer dollars, rather than grant funding.
The board will also vote on spending $100,000 on evidence-management software for the LRPD and about $56,000 on novel vests for the police.
Sponsored by Ward 4 City Director Capi Peck, the virtual attendance ordinance would end pandemic-era allowances for city directors as well as for the mayor to attend board meetings virtually. Peck’s ordinance would still allow virtual attendance in cases of medical emergency.
The board is expected to take a final vote on the novel mandatory attendance policy next week.
