- After months of local opposition, Woodland police continue to use Flock license plate reader cameras. City officials stand by the renewed contract approved earlier this year.
- Police say the technology is a useful crime-fighting tool, but opponents point to concerns about privacy and data sharing.
- A local opposition group formed and conducted a community audit of Woodland’s Flock data.
After months of local opposition, Woodland is maintaining its use of Flock license plate reader cameras.
Officials have met with residents and have been willing to “engage and talk through issues” related to privacy, but they have no immediate plans to end the city’s contract with Flock Safety, said Spencer Bowen, spokesperson for the city of Woodland.
“While we have not terminated our contract, we are monitoring access closely to protect our data from misuse,” said Woodland Mayor Tom Stallard in an email. “Our council is on record as not furnishing data to federal agencies in accordance with California law.”
The contract, which the City Council renewed in February, allocates $300,000 for the maintenance of about 40 Flock cameras operating throughout Woodland.
Since then, some residents have pushed back against the use of the license plate readers, pointing to concerns about who can access the information the company collects.
But the cameras continue to scan thousands of license plates per day in Woodland, with police and local officials highlighting their usefulness as a crime-fighting tool.
An existing crime-fighting tool
When the City Council met in February, the extension of the Flock contract was met with opposition from community members who highlighted the technology’s data-sharing component, which allows law enforcement agencies around the state to access data collected in Woodland.
“I’m not questioning the intentions of the city or of the Police Department but rather raising concerns about security,” said Jessica Martinez at the meeting. “We must stop contributing to mass surveillance infrastructure in this city.”
Martinez pointed to other cities in the state that halted contracts with the company over security concerns, including Santa Cruz and Oakland.
But police officials assured the council that the department has control over who it shares information with and that California law bars authorities from sharing out of state.
“We control who we share with,” Woodland police Lt. Heath Parsons said. “No one can access our system without our authority.”
That, along with its efficacy as a crime-fighting tool for an understaffed department, persuaded the council to vote unanimously approve the contract extension.
“It helps us find stolen vehicles,” said Woodland police Chief Ryan Kinnan. “It helps us identify suspect vehicles in violent and serious offenses. It assists us in missing persons investigations.”
Opposition releases an audit
The extension of the contract activated a local group known as DeFlock Woodland, CA, which is pushing the city to remove the cameras.
In March, the group released a community audit of data it requested from the city’s Flock system, alleging that Woodland’s data was accessed and searched thousands of times by federal and out-of-state agencies.
The concerns raised in the audit have contributed to the city’s decision to launch its own audit of Flock systems, said City Manager Ken Hiatt during a council meeting at the beginning of March.
“The simple response at this point is that we continue to look into each of the assertions that are being made and performing our own audit of how Flock is being used here in Woodland,” he said. “The questions are not going unheard, and the answers will be forthcoming.”
Bowen referred Abridged by PBS KVIE to the Woodland Police Department for the most up-to-date information on the city’s internal audit of Flock cameras. The department did not respond to a request for comment.
