Write a new simple attractive title based on the title from Valley sheriffs’ offices say transparency is key to Flock usage. Largest agencies stay mum. and dont use quote marks

As disdain for Flock Safety cameras continues growing across the United States, several states and cities have been rolling back on their implementation of these systems due to public mistrust.

However, as one Austin-based tech attorney put it, these are uncharted waters and legal arguments against them simply don’t exist — at least not yet.

Utilizing Deflock.org, an open-source project where — through verified crowdsourcing — users track the locations of Flock cameras around the country, one can see that the majority of these cameras in the Rio Grande Valley are found in McAllen, Edinburg and Brownsville.

Those cities have a combined population of 447,671 residents who likely unknowingly cross paths with the surveillance cameras in those cities on any given day.

Despite this large-scale surveillance, the Edinburg, McAllen and Brownsville police departments all refused to participate in interviews regarding their use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs).

However, the Hidalgo and Cameron County sheriff’s offices were quick to speak with MyRGV.com, citing the need for trust and transparency with members of the community.

“(We) want to build trust with the community,” Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Raul Gonzalez said. “That’s why we’re open about it.”

Gonzalez explained that his department placed cameras in strategic locations around the county in order to read license plates simply for law enforcement purposes, such as locating missing vehicles and or persons.

Echoing the similar sentiment, Deputy and Local Agency Security Officer Daniel Rodriguez of the Cameron County Sheriff’s Office said all the information police agencies receive from Flock cameras are license plates.

“I know that some people are concerned that it would take pictures of them inside their vehicle,” Rodriguez said. “It’s just simply not designed for that, at least that’s not something that we see on our end. We only see pictures of license plates and the back of the vehicle.”

Gonzalez compared the Flock cameras to CCTV cameras one would find at convenience or department stores, malls and dashboard cameras individuals may have installed on their vehicles.

“So, I mean, anywhere you go nowadays there’s cameras,” Gonzalez said.

Part of the backlash Flock cameras also face comes from police officers allegedly abusing the system to track and stalk people they know, the Associated Press has reported.

“A vehicle is not looked upon just to be looked upon,” Rodriguez said. “You have to have a case, you have to have a reason.”

One of the safeguards against abuse is an alert from the Flock system that notifies supervisors if one person is searching for a license plate repeatedly.

Once it’s flagged, the supervisor can look and see why that plate was searched for more than a particular reason and if the reason given isn’t valid, they’ll investigate.

“I make sure that (officers) are forced to put a reason as to why they’re searching before they even put that plate, so that helps to mitigate any unauthorized searches,” Rodriguez said.

Another safeguard in place is the necessity to attach a case number to a search of a license plate, which also helps supervisors review why an officer made that search.

“There’s always oversight,” Gonzalez said. “We have internal audits and then if they misuse them, obviously there’s disciplinary action against the employee to include termination if they misuse them.”

Gonzalez also stated that he understands people’s concern over privacy. However, he assures that his department only uses it to track license plates and not individuals.

“One of the biggest things that I think that we’ve heard is that we use them to track people,” Gonzalez said.” That is not correct, 100%. We are not tracking people.”

Rodriguez said that some people believe the cameras scan people or that the cameras are used for immigration checks, but he assured that isn’t the intention of their usage of Flock cameras.

“We don’t use it for any nor has there been any case that I know of, especially not with this administration under Manuel Treviño, where we simply will not use it for any type of immigration enforcement,” Rodriguez said.

Both officers stated that they have seen positive results related to the usage of license plate readers.

Rodriguez gave an example of one deputy who managed to recover about 20 stolen vehicles between 2022 and 2023 by utilizing those systems.

The two spokesmen stated that their respective departments aren’t too concerned with the current criticisms revolving around Flock as they only use their cameras as a tool for investigative purposes.

“Has it helped? I can tell you it has,” Gonzalez said. “We have had some good success stories because it was something that helped the investigators solve a case and recover something or put a case together and were able to get a successful prosecution.”

Despite the safeguards and assurances from police, Flock Safety is still a private company with a database of the information gathered from their surveillance systems.

Managing Attorney Majo Castro with Castroland Legal PLLC spoke with MyRGV.com about the current situation and what happened in Pflugerville, a city with a population of around 60,000 just 18 miles north of Austin.

A public information request done by a Pflugerville resident resulted in their city council to cancel their contract with Flock Safety and cover up all their cameras.

That resident, Sam Aly, discovered that 459 agencies accessed the Pflugerville database 1.6 million times within six months which prompted one city council member to reveal to Aly that they had authorized access to around 80 law enforcement agencies.

“That’s the concerning part,” Castro said. “Why do we have so many searches in such a small city?”

Castro says the main concern regarding Flock Safety is that other agencies are able to access the data and information collected by the company.

“Usually whenever you’re in the middle of a legal case and someone needs to know anything specific about a resident, they should subpoena the information out of a private company,” Castro said.

“And that’s done through a legal process, you need to be in the middle of a lawsuit, there are a lot of things to even get to the point in where we’re getting private information from anybody, but in this case we have a private company owning a lot of data from a lot of people with a lot of players involved.”

Castro said she was able to read the Master of Service Agreement between Flock Safety and Pflugerville which had open ended clauses that caught her attention.

According to Castro, one of those clauses allows Flock Safety to resell the data.

“They are able to legally resell the data out of the system,” Castro said. “They have a way to do that and that’s the scary thing.”

This adds to the concerns that the information gathered can be bought by a federal agency like the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement to feed data bases and use them for whatever purpose they wish.

When asked what the legal argument against using Flock cameras was, Castro said there isn’t any.

“This is such a new technology that the Supreme Court … (hasn’t) even gotten there yet,” Castro said.

“Here, we’re getting into new territory and that’s the scary but exciting thing. You know we have technology that can advance searches and really help the community but we don’t know how to regulate it yet.”

Castro adds the Supreme Court is divided on the issue because they say that vehicles aren’t private because they are on public roads, which is why they haven’t ruled anything of value regarding this new tech.

She says that Flock cameras are more advanced than CCTV cameras in which they are able to see what you’re doing on your phone even while in a vehicle.

“With this new technology, we need a new way to interpret regulations and civil liberties and protections for residents and citizens,” Castro said.

She agrees that the tech can be useful but that it requires regulations in order to be used responsibly.

“Now we’re getting into AI governance territory,” Castro said. “AI governance is an area of law … in (which) we talk with cities and the IT departments and we start recommending security controls and audits and tracking who accesses what.”

She adds that those safeguards could allow police departments to have the information they need, but can also give residents the protections they desire.

However, the issue doesn’t stop there.

Castro says that Flock Safety is only one company with the next “shiny” tool that can be replaced by another company offering something similar to cities.

Not only that, but Flock Safety could also offer contracts to other organizations like school districts, other private companies and even Homeowner Association communities.

“We need to think (about) audits, we need to think (about) access controls, we need to think on how to protect the residents’ data from access by other agencies that are not supposed to be accessing it,” Castro said.