Photo: Zendelle Bouchard
Press Release
A Virgina-based civil rights group has called on Sanford city officials to abandon use of automatic license plate reader cameras after the 60-day trial period ends.
The Institute for Justice is objecting to the installation of cameras at six downtown intersections, which was approved by the City Council by a 4-3 vote Sept. 16. The trial is offered by Flock Safety, one of a handful of companies in the emerging surveillance field.
“These cameras are incredibly revealing and allow police to reconstruct people’s past movements without a warrant or any reason to believe they’ve done something wrong” IJ Attorney Michael Soyfer said in a press release. Soyfer is one of the leaders of IJ’s nationwide fight against these cameras. “We hope that over the next few weeks, city officials will learn just how ripe these cameras are for abuse and won’t decide to keep them around after the trial period ends.”
IJ claims thousands of communities around the United States have partnered with Flock Safety, Motorola Solutions, PlateSmart, and others, to install ALPR cameras on their roads. Unlike red-light cameras or speed cameras that are triggered by specific violations, these cameras photograph every vehicle that drives by and can use artificial intelligence to create a profile with identifying information that then gets stored in a database.
City councilors Jonathan Martell, Nathan Hitchcock and Pete Tranchemontagne voted against the trial, objecting to the cameras as a privacy invasion. After the vote, councilors Bob Stackpole and Maura Herlihy said they would be looking closely at the results of the trial and how the data were used before approving any permanent contract with Flock.
Sanford police say the cameras will give them a jump in the immediate aftermath of a reported crime. Chief Eric Small and Lt Colleen Adams say police would use the cameras only if a criminal investigation is under way.
Springvale defense attorney Dagan Vandemark told the council that other communities around the country have tried Flock cameras and rescinded their contracts due to misrepresentation from the company over who the data would be shared with, including federal immigration authorities. Chief Small confirmed that SPD would share info with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) if requested, as they would with any other federal law enforcement agency, unless a state law is passed to prevent it.
The IJ’s Plate Privacy Project will propose model legislation in state legislatures to protect against warrantless ALPR surveillance, partner with local grassroots activists to help them resist the use of these cameras in their communities and continue fighting in the courts to strengthen the Fourth Amendment’s protections against this new form of surveillance. Additionally, the project’s website plans to provide data for people to learn about the scope of ALPR surveillance in their own community.
The post City Urged to Make Traffic Camera Use Temporary appeared first on Sanford Springvale News.
