Flock Safety updates camera policies after misuse

Tonight, a Chandler police officer is out of a job after admitting to misusing the city's flock camera system. Yeah, this is the second valley officer to resign over unauthorized use of automated license plate readers just days after Apache Junction police officer also stepped down. Fox 10's Jacob Luthi is live in Chandler tonight with more as questions grow about these camera systems and how they're being used. Jacob. Yeah, Christina, John, look, you may have remembered last Friday is when Chandler announced that it was going to discontinue its use of the flock cameras. Now they cited an anomaly that was found during a routine audit process. Now tonight we know that that anomaly was an officer using the camera system to find an elderly family member. As you had mentioned, he is now resigned. Now, despite the fact that Chandler announced that they're discontinuing the cameras, those who spoke tonight at the City Council meeting say that doesn't go far enough with this technology. 40 of Chandler's flock cameras are no longer in use, but the city says it's still open to a new vendor with stronger safeguards. We're here today to push for a total ban on ALPR cameras. Residents packed Chandler City Hall Thursday after the city dropped its automated license plate reader vendor. The move came after police say an officer misused the system to search for a family member. That officer has since resigned. We've been saying the whole time that abuse was going to happen. It wasn't a question of if it would happen, it was a question of when. Agencies across Arizona are now rethinking how they use flock cameras. In August alone, Pinal County joined Chandler in ending their programs while Apache Junction, Goodyear and Surprise investigate possible misuse. Meanwhile, Tempe is changing how it shares flock data. Flock has helped so many cities, thousands of cities reduce their crime. And the question people are asking, which is right, is what is the cost of that crime reduction? As questions grow nationwide over data sharing and officer misuse, flock announced major changes. The company says it's cutting default data retention from 30 days to seven. Flock is also adding oversight, requiring case numbers for searches and automatically locking out users flag for suspicious activity. They're also urging more agencies to use its existing transparency portal, giving the public a look at how long data is kept, who it's shared with and how often the system is searched. Not every officer has followed either a policy or a standard that we think is good enough. And so by requiring a case code, it makes it easier and more effective for agencies to make sure that their system is being used within policy and for criminal investigations exclusively. Taylor residents say flock is only part of the problem and more guard rails won't fix it. The technology is really fundamentally broken and it's been really heartening to see people realize that and demand control over their cities, demand this technology leave. Now the removal of the cameras is on flock safety to do. The city announced tonight that as right now, no employees have access to the cameras. Some people tonight actually brought up potentially putting bags over the cameras, asking the city if that was a possibility. The city said that they are going to look into it right now, but could not confirm whether or not that is something that they will do. But of course we are going to be following this story as it continues to develop, as cities continue to look into their use of this technology. Reporting live in Chandler tonight, Jacob Luthe, Fox 10 News.