GOSHEN – The Orange County Legislature has adopted a local law to regulate installation, operation and maintenance of automated license plate readers and surveillance cameras on county-owned property and public rights-of-way.
At this point, the county does not employ those technologies, and any municipality that may have theirs on the county property, will have to relocate them.
The legislation, sponsored by Stephen Hunter, is not meant to impede the role of law enforcement, but rather to protect citizens’ privacy.
Legislator Sparrow Tobin said this will bring the county’s policies current with modern technology.
“I think in the world we live in, technology is our peace and regulation, and sometimes we have to catch up, and sometimes we have to hit the brakes,” he said. “I think now is the time to hit the brakes on mass surveillance.”
The new policy establishes data security mandates, prohibiting unguarded external data sharing, and mandating audit policies.
Should the county place that technology on county property in the future, it would have to be stored on county services, not commercial ones like the Flock company or other similar systems.
Comments