I've had about a 50/50 split in residents expressing disappointment vs relief about my no vote on the Flock camera system this past Monday.
We had a great discussion and many valid points were brought up, with the Flock ALPR camera system passing 3 - yes to 2 - no. It's important to note that everyone on council received a lot of feedback from residents, and we each voted for what we believed was the right course to serve the residents & visitors to Ferndale, now and in the future.
For those who didn't attend and don't want to watch on Youtube, here are my thoughts, which I read last night during the vote.
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Two truths:
1. Technology should never be assessed exclusively at a single moment in time, as it currently stands - technology is designed to evolve and change. 2. Privacy, once lost, is almost impossible to regain.
Our residents and council support our police, and want to enable them to protect and serve. When I first heard about this project I was 100% against it, then after hearing the use case for police and conversations with them, I shifted my stance 100% for it. My stance shifted again after compelling information and questions from our residents, and data from the ACLU and Brennan institute. It shifted even further after reviewing the contract and feeling like there were conflicts between the value propositions Flock presented and the contract language.
We are being asked to hand over public information to a private, for-profit organization with problematic investment ties to organizations with broad data analytics capabilities and ties to mass surveillance efforts. Flock’s pitch to us has solidly revolved around their commitment to privacy and our ownership of the data.
• While we own the data, the contract states that we are granting Flock the use of that data in perpetuity. • While we have a fantastic ALPR policy that limits sharing data, Flock has the ability to supersede it and share that information. • While the data is scrubbed after 30 days, the aggregate data can be used in perpetuity by Flock. •While this product, in its current iteration, appears solid, Flock has spelled out that this product can change, based on Flock's desire to increase their competitive strength, marketability, or to improve their service line.
None of us know the future, even the agents of Flock. While we have faith in our city, and our police, I have reservations about outside parties use of data, especially given that we’re a city that has been such a bastion of safety and privacy and inclusion. This is an ecosystem we’re buying into, not just a tool for Ferndale. That ecosystem is recording date, time, and details of vehicles up to and including bumper stickers, which can easily create a detailed profile of an individuals movement.
Flock stated in their response to us that the contract can be changed up to the moment that it is signed. I think it’s more prudent to button up the privacy and data sharing aspects of this, if possible. The fact that even today, after 3 presentations and 2 community sessions I’ve received feedback from residents who are concerned that this is facial recognition, traffic ticketing, parking cameras, etc tells me that we would benefit from stronger engagement, especially around the ALPR policy itself. What I don’t want is for this to impact the trust our residents have in our public servants, and I would love to have our soon-to-be-formed police advisory board give this the stamp of approval. I don’t expect this to go away, and I can see the benefit of the tool in property recovery and increasing public safety.
-- Here's the google doc I put together to organize my thoughts about the contract language and compile different citations about ALPR tools and Flock in particular.
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