Flock camera case could have local impact

Yahoo

29-04-2025

(WKBN) – A federal lawsuit in Virginia against the Norfolk Police Department could have a far-reaching impact, including here in the Valley.
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The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia surrounds Norfolk's use of Flock cameras (license plate readers) — specifically 172 of them.
2024.10.21-1-ComplaintDownload
The most recent and impactful move so far in the case is that the federal judge recently ruled against Norfolk's motion to dismiss the case and is allowing it to be litigated. There have been other cases brought to court involving the use of Flock cameras, but this one is gaining traction because of the judge's ruling not to dismiss.
The lawsuit was filed by Lee Schmidt and Crystal Arrington against the City of Norfolk Police Department and its chief. It contends that their civil rights were violated when their vehicles were recorded on the city's Flock camera system.
The lawsuit says that 'unlike a police officer posted at an intersection, the cameras never blink, they never sleep, and they see and remember everything. Every passing car is captured, and its license plate and other features are analyzed using proprietary machine learning programs, like Flock's 'Vehicle Fingerprint.''
It's a detailed history, the lawsuit contends, creating a record where every driver in Norfolk has gone, adding that anyone with access to the database can go back in time and see where a car was on any given day and track its movement for at least the past 30 days, creating a detailed map of the driver's movements.
The lawsuit said that no one can escape Norfolk's 172 'unblinking eyes,' and that there are plans to add 65 more of them.
The tracking and surveillance that Flock provides, according to the lawsuit, would have taken days of effort, multiple officers and significant resources 10 years ago, but today it is done in just minutes, and the lawsuit contends that there are no 'meaningful' restrictions.
The lawsuit says that while Norfolk's policy is to use the information only for law enforcement purposes, it contends every city officer can search the database 'whenever they want for whatever they want' with no advance approval, and without a warrant.
The lawsuit says that cameras record for 30 days before the information is deleted, but within those 30 days, video and photos can be downloaded. Also, Flock keeps a centralized database with over one billion license plate reads every month, meaning that even after a driver leaves the city, officers can potentially keep following them in the more than 5,000 communities where Flock currently has cameras, the lawsuit said.
The case alleges Fourth Amendment violations by tracking the 'whole of a person's public movements' over at least a 30-day stretch, which is in essence a search without a warrant.
Several police departments in the Valley use Flock cameras. Youngstown and Niles have been vocal in public praise for the technology that has helped them in investigations and led to arrests connected to criminal activity.
Niles has 30 cameras. The policy for their use is very targeted. The department's manual reads, 'LPR (license plate reader) systems and associated equipment and databases are authorized for official public safety purposes. Misuse of this equipment and associated databases, or data, may be subject to sanctions and/or disciplinary actions.' And any information obtained from the LPRs cannot be discussed outside the scope of police work.
Chief Jay Holland said that the cameras' recordings are kept for 30 days and then purged, and the department does not have the ability to change that.
In Niles, the policy states that the department has assigned an employee with administrative oversight of the system and has established protocols for access and security involved in the collection and storage of the data. That person also authorizes any request for the LPR system use or data access.
Youngstown has 59 cameras with similar polices. Youngstown states that the LPRs' general usage is for things such as locating stolen vehicles, identifying vehicles associated with wanted people and supporting ongoing investigations. It specifically forbids unauthorized use, which would include personal, administrative or non-law enforcement activity.
Also, Youngstown's policy requires all users of the LPR to complete training before operation or accessing the data.
There are also stopgaps with confirmation between a picture of a license plate and other identifying features. For instance, users must visually confirm the license matches the LPR system alert, including the plate number, state of issuance, and 'other identifying features.'
Again, the data is retained for 30 days, unless it is associated with an active investigation.
The LPR data can be shared with other law enforcement agencies, but any request for the information from the public must be reviewed by the chief of police or a designee.
In Youngstown, routine audits are done of the system and usage. Misuses would prompt an internal affairs investigation.
WKBN 27 First News reached out to Flock Safety about the court case, and while they cannot comment on pending litigation, Flock Public Relations Manger Connor Metz said that there is decades of case law showing that LPRs, as limited, point-in-time search, are constitutional under the Fourth Ammendment and has been upheld in appellate courts.
'License plates are issued by the government for the express purpose of identifying vehicles in public places for safety reasons. Courts have persistently found that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a license plate on a vehicle on a public road, and photographing one is not a Fourth Amendment search,' Metz wrote in a response to an inquiry from WKBN 27 First News.
Metz added that in jurisdictions where there have been limits put on the use of LPRs, Flock had adjusted its system.
'Flock Safety provides hardware and software tools that help officers gather objective evidence to solve more crimes. In states or individual jurisdictions where legislators have instituted laws governing prohibited uses of LPR or rules around sharing, we enable our system to allow police to comply with these laws.
The Virginia case is making its way through federal court with the latest filing dated April 25, dealing with protecting private information during the discovery phase of the litigation.
The Warren Police Department did not provide its Flock policy to WKBN 27 First News as of this report.
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