Flock reps defend surveillance tech to Suffolk lawmakers amid worries over civil liberty violations

Representatives of Flock Safety defended their license plate reader technology as a pivotal tool for law enforcement that complies with all U.S. laws during a lengthy hearing before Suffolk lawmakers Thursday.

Trevor Chandler, senior director of public affairs for Flock, and Joe Rosenberg, its major account executive who covers Suffolk County, emphasized each agency controls how collected data is shared and all searches are logged and auditable. The technology features no facial recognition and collects no personal data, they said. Courts have found the cameras do not violate the Fourth Amendment, and private companies using Flock technology have no access to law enforcement data, they added.

The hearing came amid worries the AI-powered technology is breaching privacy rights and the delayed rollout of a near $4 million contract for Suffolk to use the firm's gunshot detection system.

After the hearing, lawmakers said they will look at crafting legislation that puts guardrails into law related to auditing data and tracking who has access to it. They said they're not considering abandoning the cameras entirely.

Chandler said Flock does not solve crime and is not meant to replace law enforcement officers.

"What this does is allows them to solve crime quickly, and ideally with less mistakes and the ability to get justice and answers for people quicker," he said at the legislature's Public Safety Committee in Hauppauge.

Presiding Officer Anthony Piccirillo (R-Holtsville), a critic of Flock’s technology, led a series of pointed questions after taking the rare step of swearing in both Flock representatives before testifying. He pressed them on whether the company’s "core function" was to create a "nationwide surveillance system."

"It is a license plate reader system that provides point-in-time evidence for your law enforcement," Chandler said.

"I'll take that as a 'yes,'" Piccirillo responded.

After the hearing, he said while many of his questions were answered, he still has concerns about the company and "what they do with the data after it's collected" and "mass surveillance" overall.

Suffolk County currently retains data for 30 days, Chandler said. After that time, the data is "hard sanitized" and cannot be recovered, he said. He said the company has changed its policy to set the default for new customers as seven days for data retention. Some agencies elected to keep it longer than 30 days, which he said typically requires added costs to store the data.

"Suffolk County is the sole decider of who can access that information," he said in response to questions of how data is shared.

 Chandler said the company has never been hacked, although some cameras have been stolen. Rosenberg said the only data that can be retrieved from a stolen camera is pictures, the same as if someone sat in that location with a camera. There’s no access to the cloud through the device, he said.

“We're continuing to invest and innovate to make sure we're staying ahead of the bad actors that are out there,” Chandler said. 

Not all lawmakers were critical of Flock or the technology.

Legis. Stephanie Bontempi (R-Centerport) noted people are more likely to be tracked using their cellphones and apps. She said she believes the technology is useful if it can help reunite even one missing child.

"A lot of things we’re discussing today are really not issues that can be addressed through Flock," she said. "They are bigger issues."

Representatives of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office, Suffolk County Police Department and the district attorney’s office also defended the license plate readers and credited them for helping solve several serious crimes.

Allen Bode, chief assistant district attorney, said Suffolk police have “responsibly” used license plate readers since 2006 before the Flock company was founded. He said the license plate readers are one of many tools law enforcement uses.

“We can’t go back in time,” he said. “Handcuffing law enforcement will only favor the criminals."

He said the only information the DA’s office receives is still images of a vehicle and a close-up of the license plate.

Sgt. Richard Tedesco said the sheriff’s office employs an independent civilian auditor who “created a system outside of Flock” to examine for high volume users and frequency of use.

Legis. Greg Doroski (D-Jamesport) had sent Flock a letter in July requesting the company attend a legislature meeting in September.

Doroski told Newsday he met last week with the company’s director of public trust and technology for more than two hours. He said the company representatives discussed new features that are being rolled out next year, such as an auditing tool that can detect and flag abnormal searches for review.

"Tech companies are kind of guided by this mentality of move fast and break things," he said. "We can't do that with our civil liberties."

As for why Suffolk delayed the rollout of the firm's gunshot detection system, Doroski was told by Flock representatives it was due to different zoning regulations in the five western towns for installation of the gunshot detectors.