Amid community pushback, law enforcement defends Flock cameras

Support for WBUR comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com. WBUR podcast, Boston. This is Up Next. I'm Tiziana Dearing. And those are New Bedford residents chanting, get the flock out. They're protesting the use of license plate reading cameras from Flock Safety, sound from the New Bedford Light. About a dozen communities have stopped using the cameras because they're concerned about privacy and misuse, but dozens more continue to use them. John Carmichael wanted Newton to have a flock system when he was police chief there. I recently spoke with the chief about why he believes in it. Well, the technology is vital, I think, for law enforcement to help with their investigations, and not only investigations on a criminal sense, but also for public safety. These can be very valuable tools for law enforcement to use and implement in the field to help them with their investigations, but there's issues with privacy, and I understand that, but as a public safety official, I was trying to weigh those concerns with public safety and using it as an effective tool. So let's talk about those trade-offs a little bit more, and you did just talk about privacy concerns. People are protesting, vandalizing cameras in some cases. There's actually a website called IHaveBeenFlocked.com where people can see if they've been tagged by a plate reader. I want to play you a little sound from Amy Tarlow Lewis, who's a Littleton resident, about why she's worried. We didn't agree to be surveilled, and now I'm paying for my own surveillance, and the people that are being surveilled the most are the people who live here who are paying for it, who are not the ones that they're looking for. Respond to that. Well, I wouldn't put this at the level of surveillance, as opposed to other law enforcement technology, GPS systems, you know, getting a search warrant for cell site location information. This is a system that, yes, your registration plate and that information is put into a database. However, there's nobody there monitoring it. Nobody's looking at this information in real time. How do we know? How do we know no one's looking at the information? Well, I guess that requires a level of trust, right? We're trying to use this data to help with public safety. And I think the other thing that I've heard a lot and read a lot, Chief Carmichael, is this concern that while one might or might not, but let's say one does trust one's local police department, and you trust that there isn't somebody doing, you know, real-time watching, that this is information that then sits somewhere and someone else can get it. ICE can get it. Another federal department can get it. We are aware of current federal attempts to get all kinds of data on individuals. I mean, is there really any way to stop that from happening? So right now, if you're out on a public way, the police can query your registration plate. They can find out your name, your address. They can pull up your criminal history. They can go back and look at your RMV photo. So that's already happening and we can still do that. Essentially, this technology is doing the same thing. It's running the registration plate. And again, we're not going in there until after the fact to query some information or as part of an investigation. And to be clear, understanding the moment and understanding what the concerns are, understanding the cases of investigation of abuse, etc., your sense is that these trade-offs are worth it. I do. But again, there's caveats to that. And the caveats are that as law enforcement agencies, we have to do a better job of establishing trust from the community and letting them believe in what you're doing is right. And I can tell you that the misuse and the misconduct doesn't help, but those things are being addressed. And as far as the other stuff with sharing information, you can keep that within the agency or you can share it with other law enforcement agencies. And why wouldn't we? I mean, again, crime can be transient. We would want that information out there so that we can, you know, better public safety. John Carmichael is a retired former police chief in both Newton and Walpole. Chief Carmichael, thank you. Thank you.