Amid growing scrutiny over mass surveillance and privacy, Scottsdale is moving to install guardrails around its Flock Safety cameras.
In a unanimous vote on Oct. 6, city leaders approved a suite of measures the Scottsdale Police Department believes will “strengthen accountability” of its license plate reader program.
Under the plan, the city will audit the program and draft an ordinance that criminally penalizes officers who misuse the system that is meant to assist criminal investigations.
City management and police will also evaluate alternative vendors, consider limiting the number of officers allowed to access the system, review the 185-day retention of routine data, and partner with a university to independently study the program’s impacts
on public safety.
The push for safeguards came as other Valley cities have grappled with how to use the cameras following reports of potential misuse by police departments. Tempe, Chandler, Cave Creek and Surprise are among the handful of communities that recently canceled their Flock contracts.
For Scottsdale, the plan allows the city to maintain local control while preserving the public safety tool, Councilmember Solange Whitehead said.
“That’s very important to me because at some point, the state — we’ve seen this — will step in,” she said. “It’s important for us. We know what’s best for our community and that’s what we’re trying to achieve here.”
The council’s vote this week capped off an hours-long public hearing and discussion on Flock technology. The nearly two dozen people who weighed in at the council’s meeting were evenly divided on the topic.
Half agreed with the proposed safeguards and supported the cameras, noting that they’ve saved lives and helped solve missing persons and kidnapping cases. Removing the cameras would “create an unnecessary gap in our investigative capabilities,” said Lottie Kimball, who represented the Scottsdale Fraternal Order of Police.
“We want effective tools for our officers, and we want the public to have confidence that these tools are being used responsibly with the appropriate safeguards,” she said. “Those goals do not have to compete with one another.”
Other speakers believed that the technology is flawed and dangerous. They called on the council to remove the license plate readers and end its contract with Flock, as governments shouldn’t have unchecked technological power to monitor people.
“Would you want to feel watched from the moment you step outside the door?” asked Reuben White, a Ph.D. student at Arizona State University. “Compliance created through fear does not make for a healthy community, society or country.”
Largely agreeing with the public’s overall concerns, Mayor Lisa Borowsky questioned whether the cameras violate constitutional rights against government overreach.
“I’m not convinced that this does not violate the Constitution,” she said, adding, “This makes our streets safer — I couldn’t agree more, it sure does — but at the cost of the constitutional requirements and protections that we all have.”
Scottsdale Police Chief Joe LeDuce and City Manager Greg Caton first presented the slate of actions to the council in an Aug. 27 memo. They stressed then that technology shouldn’t be trusted without safeguards.
“Effective technology and strong civil liberty protections are not mutually exclusive,” LeDuc and Caton stated. “Scottsdale can, and should, pursue both.”
On Dec. 1, city staff will present a draft of the ordinance for the council to consider, as well as vendor options and potential data protections.
“Our next step,” Caton said in a press release, “is to turn council’s direction into clear, enforceable requirements.”
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Shawn Raymundo covers Scottsdale and Maricopa County. Reach him at sraymundo@gannett.com or follow him on X @ShawnzyTsunami.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Scottsdale to make Flock camera abuse a crime, as outcry grows
