PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — A major decision is expected at the Pinellas County Communications building on using Flock cameras.
This network of cameras automatically snaps photos of passing cars and records license plates. Privacy concerns have been raised by some, including a county commissioner, who believe the camera’s are watching a person’s every move and even storing information for future use.
Several letters were sent to county commissioners ahead of the county commission meeting Tuesday expressing their support of shutting these cameras down.
WATCH: Pinellas officials to decide whether to halt the use of ALPR cameras on roads
“This is a bipartisan issue as privacy and civil liberties are at stake: data sharing across multi-agency jurisdictions, cyber security concerns, and tracking individuals before they even are accused of a crime," wrote Aden Barnes.
“This technology is not new. Uh, we've used it in the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office since 2006 for 20 years," said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Galtieri.
Sheriff Galtieri told commissioners at a workshop earlier this month these cameras only take a photo of license plates and cars, not video, and there is no facial recognition of the driver.
“And for anybody that's familiar with Florida public records law, there's two pathways under that. One is confidential, which means you can't disclose it. The other is it's exempt, which means if you want to disclose it, you can. That's not this," the Sheriff said. "The legislature has said it's confidential. And that applies to us, and it applies to Flock and Motorola and Exxon and all those vendors as well, under the law. So this information has never been sold. It's not being disclosed.”
Jeremy Reynolds, a resident, sent a letter to county commissioners. It said in part, “A deputy ran roughly 300 plate searches on a woman he was pursuing, and the Sheriff's explanation was that the audits missed it because the deputy lied. An audit system that a single dishonest user can defeat is not a safeguard.”
“We need audits. We need accountability. There's no question about it. And we will do more with the ALPRs as far as audits are concerned as the manufacturers are in the process of enhancing the audit tools, and we'll do that but we can have all those enhanced audit tools, you can't say for certain it's not gonna happen again,” said Galtieri.
A resolution will be voted on Tuesday that could stop automated license plate reading cameras from being used on county roads.
To be clear, this wouldn't eliminate all automated license plate reading cameras in Pinellas County, because cities and towns control their own programs. It would just pull county roads out of the network.
The County Commission meeting starts at 2 p.m. Here's a link to the agenda.
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