City approves grant funding for license plate camera system

By Robert Tomlinson
News Director

THREE RIVERS — A grant to buy a new license plate camera system in Three Rivers garnered both praise and wariness from city commissioners Tuesday.
Commissioners approved by a 4-0 vote a $32,100 grant from the Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative (RVCRI) to place six Flock Security cameras in the city for a two-year period. Police Chief Scott Boling said the city was the recipient of one of 33 such grants in the entire United States, and the only one in Michigan. A contract between the Three Rivers Police Department and Flock Security has not been finalized as of yet.
Flock Security cameras, which have been installed in over 2,000 cities across the country since the Georgia-based company’s founding in 2017, use automated license plate recognition technology (ALPR) to read license plates and send instant alerts to law enforcement when the cameras identify license plates that match those on lists of cars that are stolen or are of interest to police on what they call “hot lists.” The cameras normally cost $2,500 each annually with a $300 install fee.
Along with the license plate, according to a presentation from Flock Security Director of Community Affairs Laura Holland at Tuesday’s meeting, the camera’s pictures are put through a machine-learning algorithm that allows officers to search on “key vehicle characteristics,” such as make, color, how many times it was seen in a community, and the last visit and timestamp.
“We see our technology as a force multiplier for our communities we partner with. This technology allows our police to be precise in who they’re responding to and what types of crimes they’re responding to instead of having to sift through hours of video footage or rely on eyewitness accounts,” Holland said, adding later that the cameras act as a “deterrent” for crime.
Holland said the cameras are not facial recognition, not tied to personally-identifiable information, and would not be used for traffic enforcement. Data captured by the Flock cameras, according to the presentation, will be kept for 30 days and then deleted.
Three Rivers Police Chief Scott Boling said the cameras would be installed at the “six major avenues into the city,” and that the main goal of the cameras is to reduce crime in the city.
“[The cameras] have shown over time that it drastically reduces not only property crimes, but also violent crimes,” Boling said.
While Flock is in many communities around the country, advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have criticized Flock’s business model, the ALPR technology, the possibility of local ALPR data being used by outside law enforcement, and other privacy concerns brought forth by their systems.
During Holland’s presentation, she tried to alleviate some of those concerns, saying they are not connected to third-party databases, a search reason is required for police to search through data, that footage owned by the city would “never be sold or shared by Flock,” and that there would be a “transparency portal” available for people to view technology policies by the department, publish usage metrics, and share downloadable search audits.
However, Holland added later that the city would also “technically” get access to other communities’ cameras as well, including Portage and Sturgis, who also have the system, “so all the local law enforcement could work together.”
In addition, Holland said the draft policy created by Boling makes it so that the police’s reason to search the data is by a case number that’s specific to an ongoing investigation. That means that in a transparency portal, which will be created for Three Rivers, every search logged would be tied to a specific case and investigative reason.
“We provide that proactively to system administrators to make sure the system is being used in the right way and how it’s supposed to,” Holland said.
At-Large Commissioner Lucas Allen was one of the more skeptical commissioners, saying if he was a police officer, he’d be for it, but if he was a citizen, “I’d be a bit more wary.” One of his worries was that, if an officer was “bored,” police could run vehicles for warrants through the state’s Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN). Holland clarified that the only data given on felony warrants are on National Crime Information Center (NCIC) hot list alerts on the national level.
“It’s not like every single person that drives by is being run through a database to check their background, that’s not what’s happening,” Holland said. “It’s only individuals that are associated with those active felony warrants or stolen vehicles. We don’t work with the LEIN system; we receive the same data sources, but we’re not operating the same way LEIN runs.”
Allen then asked if there have been times with expansion of the camera systems that they’ve been “targeting” certain areas that have more crime. Holland said different cities deploy them in different ways, based on “crime maps, demographics, and all sorts of information.”
In terms of problems with the service, Holland said there have been cases of misuse in other communities, referencing a situation near Wichita, Kan., where an officer tapped the city’s Flock camera system to stalk his estranged wife. The officer, according to the Wichita Eagle, had access revoked minutes after discovering the unlawful search, and was charged with a computer crime and stalking. However, outside of that, Holland said one of the other challenges Flock has is that “we don’t have access to every single place that needs the cameras.”
“I think sometimes there’s challenges in installing in certain locations, on certain right of ways, and that’s another challenge for us,” Holland said.
Allen said he would vote yes on the cameras, since with the grant they are essentially “free” to the city, but promised to strike down the program if it “inhibits citizens.”
“I want to make it clear that at the three-month or six-month mark, I’ll unequivocally make a motion to squash the system if in any way it inhibits the majority of our citizens, period. I don’t think it is, I think it’s a yes, it’s free, and who doesn’t like free, but I don’t want to infringe on people’s security thinking I’m being overlooked by government,” Allen said. “There’s a balance. A two-year test doesn’t mean it can’t be squashed before that.”
Holland said there is an opt-out clause in the proposed contract that the city can use at any time.
Third District Commissioner Chris Abel asked if the cameras will be able to be moved, which Holland said is possible with a fee, and then asked if there was a major incident that wasn’t cleared within the 30-day timeframe for keeping data, how they would still be able to access relevant data. Holland said if the police department does investigations, they will download data onto their servers.
Abel also asked if the city could get a quarterly report on how the system is working, to which Boling said it is possible, but the transparency portal would also be available.
Mayor Tom Lowry said he was in favor of the cameras, saying it was “an experiment” and “free to us,” but also advised to “tread carefully” with the data collected.
“I don’t know the law fully, but I know part of it is it has to come through our PD, unless it’s national or an Amber Alert, there’s so few exceptions. So you have to tread carefully on that,” Lowry said. “I think people would trust it more if it came through our PD instead of an out-of-state company, but that’s what it is.”
Boling said if the cameras are shown to not help the city’s crime situation, “we can just stop, we’re done,” but if it shows a “drastic reduction,” he claims it’ll lower insurance rates, lower crime rates, and bring people and businesses into the city. Overall, he said he’s in favor of transparency with the system.
“We want it to be something that benefits the community,” Boling said.
All four present commissioners, Allen, Abel, Lowry and Second District Commissioner Steven Haigh, approved the grant funding. First District Commissioner Pat Dane, Fourth District Commissioner Carolyn McNary and At-Large Commissioner Torrey Brown were absent Tuesday.
In other business…
Commissioners approved the first reading of a retail fraud ordinance for the police regulations section of city code, which would give officers discretion to charge an individual criminally or civilly for third-degree retail fraud. A public hearing on the ordinance is set for the city’s next meeting on March 7.
Commissioners approved $16,750 for funding a study to evaluate disinfection methods other than chlorine gas at the wastewater treatment plant. The study will be done by Jones & Henry Engineering.
Commissioners approved a $32,000 grant from the Michigan Department of Transportation via federal American Rescue Plan funds.
A motion to authorize $13,800 to remove a portion of the old bear enclosures at Scidmore Park failed, with three commissioners voting in favor to remove them, but Haigh dissenting after Allen proposed allocating more money toward the project to prevent possible change orders. Because the motion failed, the issue will be brought back to the board at their March 7 meeting. Funds would come from the old hospital demolition project.
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@threeriversnews.com.