MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WTVF) — Flock Safety license plate readers are spreading across Middle Tennessee, helping police departments solve crimes, but also sparking a growing debate over privacy, data collection, and who is watching the watchers.
Privacy concerns drew multiple people to last week's Murfreesboro City Council meeting to speak against Flock's license plate readers.
Farhang Heydari, an associate professor at Vanderbilt Law School, said the technology creates significant risks because of the scale of the data it collects.
"What Flock has done is created a nationwide database. Once you are in there there is no opt out. You can't go tell the police department to delete my plate from the database," Heydari explained.
Reports from around the country show the technology has been misused.
"Police officers using it to track girlfriends, ex-wives, something like that. Those are persistent problems and when you open a database to tens of thousands of people those problems are going to happen," Heydari said.
Heydari said data shows the cameras help recover stolen cars, but oversight varies widely by department.
"Most of what's going on is departments buy LPRs and try to implement best practices on their own. They mean well, but I think it's a job for the law, a job for city council, state legislatures, and they could do that," Heydari added.
The cameras are also cost-efficient for departments, which Heydari said makes them an easy adoption.
"The company brings it out. They maintain it. Because there is no big upfront investment, police departments are happy to pick them up and pay for them here and there," Heydari said.
Public concern over the cameras has fueled a volunteer effort called DeFlock, which maps camera locations nationwide.
"Average people had to spend their time to create this because it tells me how little transparency there is about policing across the nation," Heydari said.
Heydari believes more public pressure could lead to stronger regulations. He also says license plate readers are just one of many technologies police departments are using, and that the public should be asking similar questions about tools like drones and body cameras.
City Council Member Austin Maxwell supports the Flock cameras, calling them a valuable and cost-effective tool for law enforcement.
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