Oviedo to discuss taking Flock cameras offline

The big story at 5 30 now are license plate cameras keeping your neighborhood safe or watching your every move. Several central florida cities have already taken those flock cameras offline. Now another city could be poised to do the same. Oviedo is now the latest area to take up the flock debate. One hour from now the city council will meet to figure out if the police department's automatic license plate readers are really worth the risk. And tonight's meeting comes just days after the company added strict new safeguards to keep police in check. Fox 35's Matt Teresa is live right now in Seminole County. So Matt what are neighbors saying about those cameras? Yeah well opinions are all over on this. This is one of the city of Oviedo's flock cameras. Now the company is calling it a public safety platform but some concerned residents say they worry about their civil rights and they say it's an invasion of privacy. There used to be a flock camera at this intersection on red bug lake road. Not anymore. Just dangling wires where the camera unit used to be. We asked drivers what they think of the flock system. I think it's a good idea because accidents happen. You got cameras here and you can see everybody and know who's coming in and out and some people have accidents. In the way we're living these days you need to have as much security as possible so I'm okay with the cameras. The city of Oviedo signed a contract with flock last September to install eight cameras in the city. They're at the borders of Oviedo so once you get into Oviedo if you're driving only internal to our city you will not be tracked. It's as you are coming and going. Megan Sladek is Oviedo's mayor. She says she was and still is against the program which the city council voted for. Even if our offices are not abusing the data if flock is able to sell it to other people behind the scenes I do have some concerns that you know that something about that feels not quite right and disingenuous. People nationwide including in central Florida have been pushing back against communities setting up flock cameras concerned over the potential invasion of privacy and civil rights. Oviedo leaders decided to discuss the program after resident Gabby Mengel brought it up at a recent meeting. And I just don't think it's necessary. I don't think that it makes sense especially in a community like Oviedo. We have them on the outskirts of town. I appreciate how Chief Coleman has gone about bringing them in but I just don't I think it's too much of a slippery slope. I'd like to see them gone. Oviedo's police chief says flock is a valuable tool and any officer using their system must connect their search with the case number. This helps us know that the officer is not looking for somebody who they shouldn't be looking for and obviously if we see that same tag run multiple times it would raise a flag and we'll research it when we do our audits. In our policy we originally had it had our audits done once a month but we actually do them once a once a week. Now at this evening's meeting the city council is only expected to discuss the camera program. They're not expected to take any substantive votes on the future of the program in the city of Oviedo. Reporting live Matt Trezza Fox 35 News.