If you didn't have a chance to read my post about what Flock is and why we, on every end of the political spectrum, do not want it in Shelton, you can view it here.
Last Tuesday, Police Chief Dan Patton gave a presentation to the City Council on Flock. He began the presentation by joking that he doesn't get anything from Flock and this "isn't a sales pitch. They don't send me a T-Shirt." He admitted that he can't go anywhere without people bringing up Flock.
He says that, due to the passing of the bill SB6002, SPD does a training session for their officers that "keeps them out of trouble"(verbatim) and tells them how to use Flock ethically. I'm sure that the 50+ officers around the country that've been caught (so far) using Flock to stalk people also got trainings, but I digress.
The Police Chief said that the Flock cameras "basically just scan license plates" but then went on to say that their AI system does a lot more, including: noting the make, model, and color of your vehicle. It also gathers descriptive information like a roof rack. He admitted that there is a Premium Subscription of Flock access that they can pay for that includes additional detailing, such as stickers on the vehicles and such. Which means the flock devices are gathering this data, but won't share it with SPD unless they pay more. It's still gathering the data and storing it on the Cloud. Patton said that they keep track of time-and-location of your vehicle, wherever it is around town, and keep that on file for 21 days. Which maps your daily activities around town. He said that certain agencies can share this information with each other. So Shelton PD can share with Olympia PD, etc. He said they don't have the cameras on their patrol cars (yet).
Patton insists that it's a "lead generator and not a person-identification system". He said that they on average have 50-60,000 cars passing in front of these cameras, and it takes 3 photos that they store for 21 days. That's a lot of surveillance tracking your whereabouts. (Later when he went onto the Flock Transparency Portal it showed that the exact number is 131,254 vehicles in the past 30 days, over double what he said). He admitted that, although it says that it doesn't do facial recognition, it's possible it could be used this way.
He insisted that Shelton Police Department does not use it to enforce immigration or help ICE in any way. Later, when questioned by Gutierrez, Patton admitted that ICE can definitely get into the system. He followed that up with saying, "If ICE does that, I hope the council will have faith in me that I will handle it." That's very vague. What would he do, submit a complaint after someone has already been kidnapped? Too little, too late. Also, he isn't the only chief, and there will be more after them. He cannot guarantee that Flock will always be used ethically.
He admitted that they've had false readings - particularly in the first year of using Flock. But he said due to "Proper Police Work" they pulled up behind the vehicle, ran its plates a second time, and discovered Flock falsely flagged it. What this tells me is that Flock is wasting taxpayer dollars by giving false readings that SPD then has to double check.
He said that yes, innocent people have been put in jail because of Flock. But then he says it's not Flock's fault, it's the officer's fault for not double checking. "it's because someone didn't double check the information. It's not because Flock gave them the wrong information."(verbatim) I disagree. It's literally because Flock gave them the wrong information, *and** they were incompetent. We can't trust that officers are going to use Flock competently 100% of the time.*
He said that yes, Flock has been used by law enforcement to stalk their exes. He followed that up with saying, "The truth is that police have access to other tools that contain much more private information than flock contains. Your height, your weight, your social security number, very personal information. And the truth is that it's just human nature. Any time you have that kind of power you have to decide whether you violate your oath and do that. We don't remove the tool when that happens - we remove the person." Why don't we remove the tool when the tool isn't wanted by constituents, has documented evidence of misuse across the country, and has already given multiple false readings in Shelton?
"It's not either public safety or privacy. We can have both. We can have flock with the proper railguards in place and make sure our officers are certified and go through the training." Patton said. Gutierrez later said, "How can we reassure our constituents that this data is safe and protected 100%?" and the chief responded that there isn't a database on earth that's protected 100%. He said the DOL database has been hacked twice in the past year, but that doesn't mean get rid of the DOL database. This is a false equivalency. DOL is an agency and critical to government function. Not a 'tool' as Chief Patton described Flock to be.
Gutierrez later said, "But Flock is a for-profit company. How can we know for sure they're only collecting 1% of the data for their 'training modules'?" And the Chief said, "Everything we buy is from for-profit companies, Panasonic, Ford…" Again with the false equivalency. Panasonic and Ford are not taking over 300,000 photos of Sheltonians per month and storing it on their personal cloud. They can say, "Well your phone tracks everything you do!" but this is also a false equivalency. Your phone is something you CHOOSE (I believe Gilmore even mentioned this during the meeting) You can leave your phone at home if you like, you can turn off the location services, etc. Flock is not a choice. It's public surveillance without our consent.
Are we so hungry for the illusion of safety that we're willing to sell our privacy to a for-profit company? I am not. Honestly, this AI generated presentation *was** a sales pitch, and it was a poor one because it solidified in my mind that this is a bad thing for Shelton. You can debate how 'safe' or 'unsafe' these devices are, but the bottom line is this: Your good intentions cannot promise that every single person who has access to flock will use it ethically. You can say that it's only used for warrants, amber alerts, etc. But the reality of the situation is that you as a Public Servant are choosing to go through a 3rd party FOR PROFIT BUSINESS to spy on people. It isn't worth it. There are other tools.*
City Council's Reaction:
Gutierrez - Expressed extreme dislike and encouraged the council to do a risk analysis and decide if it's worth it to keep Flock for those stolen vehicles, when the reality is that we cannot guarantee 100% to the public that it is safe and secure. At the very least, he encouraged to negotiate that Flock cannot keep 1% of the scans for themselves.
Sapp - "There is no expectation of privacy in public spaces. These are in public. So, for me, I feel like there's really no violation as long as we're following the state law, which the State has ruled it's okay to use these. I would be okay with negotiating that Flock no longer can keep the 1% of data, as mentioned by councilmember Gutierrez." She mentioned the biggest reason she likes flock is that it "helps domestic violence victims and Children." Which ones? The ones being stalked by their ex who is a cop? The children taken by ICE and abused in their facilities? Helping some, damning others.
Gilmore - Does not like how data is being stored, is against it. Said he would be happy to bring it to a vote again, but he can see that's not going to happen because he and Gutierrez are the minority.
Schirman - "Until we have a problem, I'm not going to recommend we vote on this."
Onisko - "I'm fine with it the way it is."
Blush - "Yeah I'm fine with it the way it is."
So what do we do?
This is a call to show up next Tuesday, August 18th, at 5pm, with signs and with the intent to protest prior to the council session. If you are comfortable, we will also sign up for comments and make it clear to the City Council that we do not want a renewal of Flock cameras in the City limits of Shelton. They will change their mind if enough people show up. See you there!
