On Monday, August 31, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) revoked all right of way permits for Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs). It wasn’t mentioned by name, but it was widely understood that this was rooted in the bad publicity related to Flock Safety systems. While they are the best known or perhaps better said, the most notorious, it is not certain that the majority of right-of-way ALPRs were Flock Safety camera feeds.
Flock Safety is a problem, but not THE PROBLEM
My daily news feed had frequent stories regarding law enforcement officers accessing Flock Safety databases where both male and female officers were abusing the system to keep tabs on current or former romantic interests. In a previous article, citing recent cases, all the Florida officers identified had not simply abused the Flock Safety database, but had also committed criminal acts involving Criminal Justice Information Systems (CJIS) data and the Florida’s Driver And Vehicle Information Database (DAVID).
About two years prior to retirement, I was selected to be the administrator for DAVID in my agency. I was the administrator for a couple of other important state databases, so I was a logical fit. It came at a time where the state had identified where law enforcement organizations had fallen behind on a comprehensive audit regime and abuses were not being discovered until violators were subject to termination and criminal charges. The goal by the agency and the state was training, compliance, and near zero violations. In 2018 and 2019 violators would be both disciplined, and if necessary, prosecuted. The two-pronged education program by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles was nothing less than clear. Perfect records were stained by being sustained for minor DAVID violations. That was a great influence force working for you. Discipline delivered the message rapidly via informal channels.
The auditing trouble
I saw the problem right away: the smaller the agency, the more an internal audit puts the auditor’s own career on the line. Supervisors are supposed to provide cover, but what happens if the violator is their boss’s boss?
Our usernames were a combination of surnames and employee numbers so while they would have a degree of anonymity for those outside our agency, those on the inside would immediately recognize seniority and likely identity the user without a query into our personnel database. At the time I recognized the conflict that an auditor in another role might sense.
At the time I was assigned to chief’s staff, so if I recognized a manager or command staff member attributed to suspicious transactions, I had the liberty to go to the chief of staff or even the chief himself for guidance. However, if the auditor was a sergeant climbing a promotion list, he might find a violation by his or her captain easy to skip or intentionally miss. Analysts or Emergency Communication Specialists (ECS) would find themselves in an even more dicey situation where it is very challenging to initiate an inquiry of someone in middle or upper management. Recently I ran into a friend who is now the police chief of a small department. Can you imagine the pressure of bringing forth violations in a department of less than two dozen sworn?
Not a technology issue, a leadership issue
We need to recognize that the public issues with ALPRs and their associated databases is not that they are inherently life invading surveillance devices. Let me be on record as saying that there has been no reasonable explanation for a 30-day database retention policy. Everyone intertwines exigent Amber or Silver Alerts with ‘who-dun-it’ homicide cases.
Clearly, ALPRs are the frontier of technology to be properly tamed and managed. The privacy of innocent motorists and the undeniable public safety benefits must be strictly balanced. Every bit of technology since 1997, when most people joined the internet age, has been a Pandora’s box of infinite settings with such an overwhelming array of choices, that many stick to the default settings.
Given the stakes of the current decisions being made, law enforcement does not have the luxury of failing to go deep into the custom settings of the feeds entering our agency’s networks. I’ve spoken to several friends over the past few days who are obligated to deal with both the controversy and the fallout from the FDOT decision to cancel right-of-way permits to ALPRs. When we discuss the Flock Safety 30-day default setting, as mentioned two paragraphs earlier, I’ve been told that the data that goes that far back is vital in major cases yet with no cases cited, but the valid testimonies on the effectiveness of the technology are how it provides critical immediate leads and connections during exigent circumstances like Amber Alerts.
The path forward
Additional oversight is necessary for trust to be restored in the officers and agencies entrusted with these data repositories. As mentioned previously, most of the Flock Safety violators were committing non-criminal violations, until they crossed the line to criminal stalking, but as many as were arrested were charged with violating criminal statutes regarding CJIS and DAVID data.
It is clear at this point that a complete overhaul of all the information systems audits is necessary in every agency.
A wise man told me, you can’t audit yourself. You can no more audit yourself than be your own accountability partner.
The obvious solution to me is to have agencies audit one another blind. Whether it is a 30-member agency anonymously audit another 30-member agency doesn’t matter. That is the work of a rules committee. When the auditor knows the agency from the reports but has zero association or relationship with anyone in that organization, real accountability will take place. Today is the long overdue moment for law enforcement agencies to tighten up on every protected information source.
Please keep all law enforcement officers in your prayers!
Roland Clee served a major Florida police department as a Community Service Officer for more than 26 years. His career included uniformed patrol, training, media relations, intelligence, criminal investigations, and chief’s staff. He writes the American Peace Officer newsletter, speaks at public safety, recruiting and leadership conferences and helps local governments and public safety agencies through his business, CommandStaffConsulting.com.
His work is frequently featured on LawOfficer.com, the only law enforcement owned major media presence in the public safety realm.
For media interviews and podcast appearances, click here: http://bit.ly/40pT3NS
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References
https://www.city-journal.org/article/automated-license-plate-readers-flock-ban
Excellent article. Where technology crosses new lines that raise privacy concerns, I am reminded of George Orwell's book "1984": "In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows." The book was a warning, not an instruction book. The technology, if misused by humans, can be too intrusive. I agree that independent oversight is needed. Prosecutors should establish a review panel to review detectives' applications to use the technology, with access to a limited period of data and an application for a court order to access older data. The assignment of case numbers, with the approving party's authorization for access logged in the database, could be worked out.
Great piece. Another perfect example of how failure to invest adequately in policing systems is one of the biggest problems we face. We overtask and under-resource agencies. Technologies like ALPR are game-changers for gaining efficiencies, but they are ripe for abuse if users are not adequately trained and supported.