Communities across the country are using a shiny law enforcement toy for the first time — automated cameras that record video and read license plates. But there’s growing concern about their misuse in some law enforcement circles and how they can lead to things just going plain wrong.
Back in October, Florida authorities arrested a 24-year-old woman on charges of killing three people in a late-night hit-and-run accident on Interstate 4. The problem? It wasn’t her.
Her black Dodge Durango passed a Flock-brand camera two minutes before the crash. Witnesses told police that the vehicle involved was maroon. Maroon paint was found at the scene. Callers to 911 offered a partial plate number that didn’t match the woman’s black Durango, which also had no damage on it.
But none of that evidence carried the weight of the misinterpreted info from the Flock camera. Troopers were in the woman’s bedroom at 4:45 a.m. and arrested her. She spent 13 days in jail. Charges later were dropped and another person was charged. But the slack police work on the night of the tragic wreck fueled by overreliance on an AI-driven automated camera tool caused the 24-year-old to lose her job and have continuing panic attacks.
It’s time to weigh the value of a new tool with how it can hurt innocent people in society — and make them feel like their privacy is vanishing.
Last month, Florida revoked automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) on state rights of way following continuing reports of “misuse, data privacy concerns and surveillance schemes,” according to one story.
The national backlash over ALPRs has flowed into South Carolina, which has been using Flock brand cameras for a few years. They’ve been used to track protesters, according to the ACLU. And there are reports that law enforcement officers in Greenville and Colleton counties, as well as in Mauldin, Greer and Sumter, have used ALPRs to stalk people. Some have been fired.
People in South Carolina — and across the nation — are rightly concerned about the cameras being used to expand into a national surveillance system, instead of as tools to develop leads that can augment real police work to stop crimes. According to DeFlock.org, which operates a crowd-sourced website that tracks ALPRs, there were more than 142,000 ALPRs in use in the United States as of Sept. 22. South Carolina is home to about 2,000 ALPRs, with the highest concentrations in metropolitan areas.
By Sept. 16, the use of Flock and similar cameras so vexed Oconee County Council that it became the first county in the state to ban their use through an ordinance to protect people from mass surveillance. The city of Greer also has suspended use of the cameras.
According to S.C. Public Radio, South Carolina does not have a statewide law regarding the use of ALPRs. There’s no cap on how long data can be kept, no penalties for misusing the cameras and no warrants are needed to access it.
There is, in fact, very little oversight and few guardrails on these AI-driven automated cameras. In January, state lawmakers should get involved and consider limiting their use as Florida did — especially since we don’t want innocent people victimized and thrown in prison like the woman in Florida.
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