License plate cameras upgrade community watch - and intensify privacy concerns

In red-and-white lettering, it warns the area is protected 24/7 by video surveillance from Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company on a mission to solve crime. Nearby, small devices strapped to poles on either side of the street, just 400 feet from the edge of the school zone, track the license plates and other identifying information of every vehicle passing by.

Spring Valley's principal didn't know about the cameras.

The homeowner's association for the adjoining Brightleaf at the Park neighborhood, which installed the devices sometime in 2019, didn't want to talk about them.

But at every entrance and exit to this community, spread across a square mile just off U.S. 70 in southeast Durham, these Flock devices watch and collect – in some cases without the knowledge of residents.

Flock's pitch to HOAs and neighborhood management companies goes like this: For a little more than a thousand dollars per camera, their technology can capture evidence that police need to solve crimes, especially difficult cases like thefts and break-ins with very few leads. The data becomes the property of the HOA, which can grant access to the information to anyone they'd like.

"We are in the business of solving crime," Josh Thomas, Flock's head of marketing, said. "We exist because we want to help capture the evidence that police are always asking for when there is property crime committed."

In Durham, there's another draw for potential customers. An agreement between the company and the police department allows detectives to access camera data directly, without requesting it from the HOA.

The use of Flock cameras is not yet widespread, and the company says it built its product with privacy in mind. Durham Police say they've also put their own rules in place to prevent potential abuse.

But deals like these, as well as the technology behind them, have intensified concerns from civil rights advocates, who are growing increasingly worried about the potential infringements on personal privacy.

"We recognize there is a First Amendment right to photograph things that are going on in public," said Ann Webb, policy counsel for ACLU North Carolina. "But our concern is really when it starts to overlap with government use of that information and creates what we would consider a slippery slope toward a surveillance state."

Automated license plate readers aren't new to North Carolina.

On second thought, House rejects plan to put license plate readers on highways

But that's not the case in North Carolina.

"The law provides that there isn't an expectation of privacy in what occurs in a public space," said Irving Joyner, professor at the N.C. Central University School of Law in Durham. "And if anybody is there and they can see it, then you can record it and the law does not impose any restrictions on what you can do there."

Flock cameras capture time-stamped still images of each vehicle that enters the frame, and the system uses a type of artificial intelligence to decipher the license plate and other identifying information. Users, designated by the HOA, can then search the database for specific entries and download them one by one.

The database is not linked to vehicle owner information from the DMV, which is protected by state law.

Although police are largely restricted from operating roadside ALPR cameras in North Carolina, nothing prevents Flock customers from using them – then handing the data they gather over to police.

Thomas, with Flock, said each HOA or management company has choices about how to grant access to police, either permanently or on a temporary basis. And whether it's being accessed by the board president or a detective, the data deletes automatically every 30 days – and can't be downloaded all at once.

Durham Police Major Delma Allen said the department entered into the agreement after a request from the Brightleaf HOA, not Flock, and officers are largely using the service as "a follow-up tool" in their investigations. Only a handful of officers have access, and he said they still request data from Flock rather than downloading it directly.

"The fact that these established cameras are erected in public areas, that supports our ability to work with that community to use that infrastructure to help us solve crimes," Allen said. "But we have to really balance the sensitivity of the community as it relates to their concerns with privacy."

The department's sensitivity to those privacy concerns emerged early in its conversations with Flock, records show.

Days after Chief C.J. Davis signed the memorandum of understanding with Flock, Allen was wary when the company wanted a quote for its press release heralding Durham Police as the 50th such agreement with police across the country.

"As a law enforcement agency, we are supportive of the use of technology to fight crime, but there are those in our political structure who express concern for privacy rights violations when using such technology," Allen wrote in an email. "Thus, we have to take each request into consideration to ensure we don't fuel the concerns of special interest groups."

Allen eventually responded with a quote about a week later, noting the department was "appreciative of the partnership" with Flock.

"Their camera networks will serve as an additional resource in investigating crimes in neighborhoods through the City of Durham," Davis said in the statement.

Joyner, who reviewed the MOU agreement at the request of WRAL News, said he sees both the benefits as well as the potential dangers to privacy.

"Particularly if you're the victim of a crime, you want the police to be utilizing the latest developments to protect you and retrieve or bring about justice in your situation," Joyner said. "But again, you have to be concerned about the abuse and the lack of guidelines and the potential that innocent people might be harmed in that process."

Across the country, though, Thomas said hundreds of thousands of homes are in neighborhoods with Flock cameras.

"You can imagine with that kind of footprint, you're capturing evidence a lot," Thomas said.

That's exactly what alarms privacy advocates like Dave Maass, senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. HOA members, he said, have none of the training or public accountability that police departments do, raising the potential for abuse.

"The question with the homeowners' association is, who gets to access that? Who gets to search that data?" Maass said. "If we're talking about a community that doesn't like that the neighbors are snooping on each other, this just makes that far more technologically sophisticated."

He worries that the system could be used to stalk or harass residents – or even people just passing through the community.

Thomas said the company has taken steps to prevent that kind of misuse.

"We're not in the business of monitoring. We don't do traffic violations, we're not interested in nosy neighbors," Thomas said. "We actually have it in our policy that if you breach the contract and you're not using it for pulling evidence, we can actually take those cameras back."

Drivers can also make sure images of their vehicles are automatically deleted from the system. All they have to do, Thomas said, is provide their tag number to whoever has access to the system.

But finding out exactly who has access isn't always easy to determine.

Email records from Durham police show Flock systems were installed, as of August 2019, in four city neighborhoods (One of those neighborhoods has since taken the cameras down, and its HOA president declined to comment for this story).

A spokesperson for the Cortland Research Park community, Samantha Harber, said no one from the neighborhood's management company would be available for an interview about their cameras.

And Katie Kushner, a community manager for the Stratford Lakes neighborhood, which also uses the cameras, cited privacy concerns when she declined to provide contact information for members of the HOA board.

At Brightleaf, community manager Robert VanGraafeiland said via email that the neighborhood HOA opted not to comment for this story, and he declined to answer questions about any specific policies about the cameras.

"That said, generally speaking, only the community manager, Flock staff and local police have access to the information that is captured by the cameras (still photos of the backs of vehicles)," VanGraafeiland said in an email. "The police department would have to speak to the effectiveness as the HOA’s only involvement is in allowing the police department to access this information."

Reached by phone, Brightleaf HOA Board President Johnathan Howard also declined to comment, but said homeowners were notified when the cameras were installed.

Flock does provide a sample camera policy to HOAs, which organizations can choose to adopt. It discloses that the cameras track and read license plates. And it notes that while cameras won't be "actively monitored" by the board, footage may be reviewed "if there is complaint of potential illegal activity in the neighborhood."

Several Brightleaf residents who spoke with WRAL News say they've seen the cameras and the signs warning of 24/7 surveillance, but weren't aware the devices were license plate readers.

Even so, most residents like Ray Goolsby said they didn't have a problem with the devices as long as they're being used for the safety of the community.

"Any added level of security is good," Goolsby said. "It's just what else they're doing with the information is what I want to know more about."

Brightleaf resident Clayton Mack said he knows there needs to be a balance between privacy and security. But this particular technology, he said, can probably do more good than harm.

"I am a person who likes to err on the side of safety," Mack said.

Flock cameras are operating in five Raleigh neighborhoods as well, although the company has declined to say where. Across the state, says Flock spokesperson Josh Miller, fewer than 20 neighborhoods have the cameras installed.

One other North Carolina law enforcement agency has a data access agreement with the company. Miller declined to say which one.

Not every law enforcement agency has shown interest.

From February to September 2019, Flock sent at least 17 emails to senior leaders of the Raleigh Police Department, records show. Internally at least, the agency decided in February 2019 not to engage with the company, which Raleigh Police Sgt. John Maultsby likened to a license plate reader version of Amazon's Ring doorbell camera.

"Interesting, but no thanks," Maultsby wrote in an email to another member of the department.

"There was no discussion" between the company and Raleigh Police beyond the emails from Flock, according to agency spokesperson Dia Harris. She declined to comment further.

Joyner, the N.C. Central law professor, only expects questions about the intersection of privacy and security to intensify as society adopts a less protective attitude about surveillance.

"We are more and more willing to accept that invasion," Joyner said.

That will leave private industry and public law enforcement agencies to sort things out as regulation lags behind.

"There may be legitimate law enforcement purposes for using some technology in the process of community safety," the ACLU's Webb said. "But what we want to figure out is where are the right bumpers on either side of that activity."

For Allen, it comes down to making sure new technology isn't working against the police department's mission.

"We have to be very mindful of that every time there's a new corporation trying to sell a new piece of software or equipment to us," Allen said.

Thomas acknowledges that for companies in this space, "it has been a little bit Wild, Wild West." That's why he said Flock has made a point to think through how they can balance privacy tradeoffs with their goal of solving property crimes.

"I personally think that private companies will help set some of what the agenda needs to be, but then I welcome legislators and regulators to come in and question that and say, 'Should we be doing those things or not?'" Thomas said.

Maass isn't so sure. He said even well thought-out internal policies could change in the future, especially when profit, not safety, is the main motivation.

That means consumers need to be skeptical about surveillance technology now.

"It's important for people to think about projecting down the road how this might get worse," Maass said. "The state of how this works today is not the state of how it might work tomorrow."