On Sept. 8, the Collegedale Board of Commissioners met to discuss whether to pause, discontinue or continue the local police department’s use of License Plate Reader (LPR) cameras.
Community members attended the meeting to express their concerns over LPRs in the area, and ultimately, the board voted to cancel Collegedale’s contract with Flock. However, the changes will not affect Southern’s private contract with the company, and the university has not expressed any plans to pause or stop its use of Flock cameras on campus, according to Shawn Haas, Southern’s associate director of Campus Safety.
Flock Safety is a private corporation that develops LPR technology and has the largest LPR network in the United States, according to Flock’s website.
The Collegedale commission’s decision to cancel its Flock contract comes about a week after the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) announced on Facebook that it was in the process of pausing the use of Flock and Motorola license plate reader (LPR) cameras.
According to the post, HCSO cited concerns about data privacy as the primary reason for pausing its approximately 70 cameras.
Sheriff Austin Garrett shared favorable sentiments toward LPR technology in the post, despite directing the pause.
“As your elected Sheriff, I truly believe in LPR technology and its ability to combat criminal activity in Hamilton County and those criminals who are here to cause harm and turmoil,” Garrett stated.
Meanwhile, national organizations such as Deflock and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have raised privacy concerns about LPR technology, asserting that the cameras can track, log and share individuals’ movements without the need for warrants.
According to the ACLU, LPRs are capable of capturing the make, model, color, license plate number, bumper stickers and any identifying characteristics of a vehicle, turning these features into searchable data points. The ACLU website states that personal information “is then uploaded into a nationwide database that any law enforcement agency with a Flock contract can search.”
Shawn Haas, Southern’s associate director of Campus Safety, said the university acquired the Flock cameras located at the four entrances to campus about three or four years ago. Southern pays an annual subscription for three cameras on campus, and Collegedale Academy sponsors one camera.
Southern installed the cameras because relying solely on CCTV made it difficult to identify license plates in theft or vandalism investigations on campus, Haas explained. He said it is difficult for the Collegedale Police Department (CPD) to investigate a situation without a clear image of a license plate. Additionally, the Flock cameras could help identify individuals banned from campus.
Since Southern installed Flock cameras, they have helped track suspects in theft cases, according to Haas.
“We had a couple [of] groups who went through the Hulsey [parking] lot and stole stuff,” he said, “and we were able to track them on our cameras and get their license plates from the Flock camera.”
Haas added that Campus Safety shared the information and images with local police, who were able to tie the theft to a rental car in Atlanta, Georgia.
The data from the cameras is hosted in the cloud rather than on physical servers on campus, Haas explained. He said Southern had shared permissions with the CPD for viewing and alerts. However, the police department was not able to access Campus Safety’s personal ban list. Haas said that with CPD’s newly approved cancellation of its Flock contract, the cameras would now be used only for the university’s internal purposes.
While Haas shared the benefits he sees from Flock cameras on campus, he also emphasized the limitations.
“[Flock] is useful, but it’s not as useful as you would probably think because you have to know their license plate, and not every person that’s banned either has a car or has an up-to-date license plate,” he said.
The Flock cameras on campus are incapable of recording video and rely solely on motion-detection-based images, he noted, explaining that the cameras are focused on reading license plates and cannot identify people.
When asked about plans to address concerns on campus, Haas articulated his willingness to speak about the topic.
“I’m happy to give the information [on] how we use them, how they work and how they’ve been helpful,” said Haas.
Cassidy Stone, an Apison resident, expressed concerns related to Flock cameras.
“I think you should have some kind of expectation of privacy when you’re out and about,” said Stone. “I don’t trust the cops or the people who own these Flock cameras to use them in ethical ways.”
Stone said that she is alarmed about a surveillance state and is pleased that Hamilton County put a pause on the use of Flock cameras.
On the anonymous social platform Fizz, Southern students voiced frustrations and threatened to take the cameras down. Around 20 posts related to Southern’s Flock cameras were posted within the last three months.
In an anonymous post from two weeks ago, one student stated, “500 upvotes and I’ll take down the flock camera.”
The post received 620 upvotes, and another student reposted, stating, “We’ll pay for your bail.”
The repost received 611 upvotes.
Callie Houghton, a community resident and nursing student at Southern Adventist University, shared her thoughts about Flock and LPR systems in an interview with the Collegedale Community News.
“As a campus thing, I think it’s actually a good idea,” she said. “There are a lot of students here, and if someone wanted to harm students on this campus, [Flock cameras] would be a way to prevent it.”
Despite supporting the use of Flock cameras on Southern’s campus, Houghton shared mixed feelings regarding the general use of LPR technology.
“I don’t think we can always trust everything to the government,” she said. She added concerns about the end times, saying that the government might then track who goes to church on Saturdays.
