When the eye of the beholder is a surveillance camera

We’re being watched. In stores. On streets. Perhaps in the front yard, if your neighbor chooses to point a security camera at it. Most of us have acclimated to these efforts to record community life.

But the recent proliferation of Flock ALPR (automated license plate reader) cameras in communities across the country has raised concerns about data collection and use, a loss of privacy, and the potential threat to our civil liberties and Fourth Amendment rights.

With funds from a NYS grant, last August, Suffolk County approved an increase to the number of ALPR cameras, from 25 to 60.  Used by county law enforcement as well as village police forces, the cameras help obtain a clear image of a license plate when police are trying to determine the cause of a hit-and-run incident, a theft, identify a stolen car or a missing person, or other actionable activity. They are small, black cylinders, about 8 by 10 inches long with a large solar panel attached.

Local law enforcement maintains the data is retained for 30 days only. And, among law enforcement offices on the East End, officials filter out requests from other agencies for potentially problematic information relating to immigration or abortion cases, two areas where outside state enforcement agencies in Texas, California, and Denver have sought identifying information that could compromise privacy.

The cameras can be mounted on police cars, secured to poles or placed roadside. They record continuously, differing from so-called “red light speed cameras” that are supposed to be triggered only if there’s a violation.

According to the ACLU, “The problem with mass surveillance is that it always expands beyond the uses for which it is initially justified—and, sure enough Flock’s system is undergoing insidious expansion across multiple dimensions.  If your community adopts this technology, you need to know it’s doing more than just recording what car is driving where and what time.”

Flock cameras are recording on local roads in Manorville, Mastic and along County Road 51.

What are they recording and why should we be concerned?

Currently, the information collected is stored in a nationwide database of driver surveillance which is made available to police personnel across the country. An officer lists the purpose of a search to pull up the information requested. In some cases, officers have accessed information that is not traffic related. For example, an officer in Texas used the national database to seek a woman who’d had a self-administered abortion, a procedure outlawed in that state, creating concerns about being tracked and spied upon. Other searches have involved requests made to local police to provide information to ICE, “including its notorious Enforcement and Removal Operations division,” in an effort to aid recent anti-immigration actions; law enforcement in Denver and California have provided ALPR data to those requests.

With the added surveillance capabilities of artificial intelligence, our personal privacy is being diminished on grounds of maintaining “safety.” There is the potential for a tool that can record and analyze not only our walk along a street, but the make, model, color of the vehicle we drive, its outstanding features like decals, roof racks, as well as facial recognition of the driver and passengers.

Left unregulated, the data accumulated by the cameras can include scanned license plate numbers, and virtually track a driver anywhere, even if he or she is not suspected of a crime. Law enforcement agencies in some states have been involved in data sharing with other agencies.

And it is important to note that as of this yea, multiple lawsuits are pending against the use of ALPRs over issues of privacy violations and illegal data sharing, including against the LAPD for use of secretive surveillance; in Scarsdale, N.Y.; and in Troy, N.Y., where its city council sued the mayor who used a declaration of emergency to bypass council approval of an illegal purchase and installation of Flock cameras.

For New York Civil Liberties Union policy experts Daniel Schwartz and Marie Holmes, there is reason to be concerned. Schwartz notes the FBI has recently announced plans to purchase nationwide ALPR data. In April, the Suffolk County Legislature introduced resolution 1393-2026 “to require certain businesses with security cameras to provide footage to law enforcement following a felony.”For those concerned about their use, organizations like deflock.org allow you to identify locations of ALPRs and also report new ones (maps.deflock.org). 

Should we be worried?

A recent review of the deflock site showed a Flock camera on Moriches-Middle Island Road near the entrance to ESM High School, by the intersection of Moriches-Middle island Road and North Street, the intersection of MMR and William Floyd Parkway, at North Street and Weeks Avenue, on Mastic Road just before Wood Road, and at the intersection of CR 51 and Speonk-Riverhead Road. Some are being used to monitor traffic, while others are for surveillance.

Moriches Chamber of Commerce treasurer Geri Sapanaro said that currently there are no plans to install cameras in the Moriches. “We don’t need them,” she said.

Elsewhere, according Schwartz, NYCLU’s bill A10808/S.9890, under consideration in the New York State Legislature, “would put the clamps on license plate readers to ensure they are no longer unchecked tools of mass surveillance.”

For more information: “How License Plate Readers Track Your Every Move.” By Daniel Schwartz and Marie Holmes. (nyclu.org)