Troy Mayor Carmella Mantello will be talking with other city officials about policy changes made by surveillance technology company Flock Safety, the manufacturer of the city’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras.
Mantello’s comments come hours after Flock announced on Thursday that it would reduce the default data retention period on its automatic license plate readers from 30 days to seven, among other changes.
The Troy Police Department currently deletes Flock camera data after 30 days. Flock Safety said in its announcement that “existing customers” like TPD “will keep their current, democratically approved retention periods.”
“Public safety and protecting our residents’ privacy can and must go hand in hand,” Mantello, a Republican, said in a statement Thursday. “I look forward to discussing these new implementations with the City Council, our Police Chiefs, and the District Attorney.”
Troy Police Chief Dan DeWolf previously told WAMC that the 30-day retention window allowed police to investigate crimes as new information “trickles in.”
In its announcement, Flock said its “analysis shows that over 90% of searches without a full plate are done within a week.”
A proposal by the all-Democrat City Council would require the police to that data after 48 hours, unless police flag it as evidence of a crime. Troy City Council President Sue Steele said in her own statement Thursday that Flock’s changes constituted “an acknowledgment of the serious security and privacy issues” raised by ALPR cameras.
“While these changes may be a step in the right direction, the City Council will continue to pursue local safeguards that will further protect personal privacy and increase accountability around the use of ALPR technology while maintaining public safety,” Steele said.
City Councilmember Noreen McKee,who drafted the council’s proposed Flock restrictions, says seven days is still “too much.”
“Seven days is still a long time,” McKee said. “It gives people who evaluate and analyze the data enough time to create, you know, patterns are created, and through the use of AI, they can predict future movements.”
McKee stopped short of calling on TPD to unilaterally change their data retention window to seven days as the council considers implementing more stringent restrictions.
“That’s up to them,” McKee said. “You know, I’m not going to weigh in on that.”
Flock also announced that it had implemented automatic auditing features in the past few months, and that it would require law enforcement agencies to implement a “proactive lockout” feature that automatically suspends users whose “activity meets defined criteria for abnormal behavior.”
A new feature would allow its customers to only share data with other law enforcement agencies depending on the type of offense. For example, city A could opt to share Flock camera data with city B in a missing person case, but not in a drug possession case.
Troy police are currently required to publish an annual audit of the Flock cameras and has “expanded prohibited uses to ensure the technology is not used for immigration enforcement,” according to Mantello.
TPD also currently limits data sharing from Flock cameras to other law enforcement agencies in New York State. This follows a policy change made in March, when the department turned off a feature that allowed law enforcement agencies across the country to search their Flock camera data in the face of public pressure.
“We are already ahead of the game having proactively implemented strong guidelines governing the use of this technology months ago in collaboration with the City Council,” Mantello said.
The City Council’s proposal would only allow Troy police to share Flock data with law enforcement agencies that have obtained a search warrant. McKee says they plan to amend it to allow TPD to share Flock data with the Rensselaer County District Attorney’s Office.
TPD has over 130 agreements with law enforcement agencies in New York State that allow them to share Flock camera data, according to McKee.
“We are just trying to create guardrails for this technology, that’s extremely powerful, you know, surveillance technology,” McKee said. “It butts up against the Fourth Amendment, and we believe in our democracy and the Constitution.”
The Troy City Council is set to discuss a 60-day audit of the TPD’s use of Flock cameras at a meeting next Thursday.
The police-led audit’s release created controversy in city government. McKee called the data “incomplete,” while Mantello said TPD made “no attempt to conceal, omit, or withhold information” and had given City Council members exactly what they asked for.
Audit data obtained by WAMC shows that police queried Flock data 826 times in connection with 81 cases. For 30 of those cases – those that led to an investigation, arrest or recovery of property – police provided a separate table with additional information, including the date the incident was reported to police and the status of the case.
McKee says she’s asked DeWolf and TPD to provide the council with the data she’s seeking by Monday so that it can be discussed at the meeting. She’s “assuming that they will comply.”
Flock cameras collect information on passing vehicles — including license plate, make, model, color and bumper stickers — and compare it to other law enforcement databases. A recent report from the journalist-owned tech news site 404 Media found that the cameras can also be used to track people.
The city first installed the cameras more than five years ago and now has 26 throughout the city in undisclosed locations. The cameras cost the city $78,000 per year.
The cameras have become a controversial subject in Troy, leading to packed City Council meetings and a lawsuit between the mayor and the council. A Troy man has been charged for allegedly cutting down one of the four Flock cameras felled in the city.
