Flock cameras help Surprise police but add questions about privacy

I think this kind of really just kind of comes down to if you trust police officers or not.”

Jack Hastings | Surprise vice mayor

By Jason Stone
Mail | X: @thestonecave

The apprehension of a man who stabbed a Surprise McDonald’s employee, the capture of a murder suspect and the arrest of a man who physically assaulted an elderly man outside a Surprise restaurant all had one thing in common.

They were all solved thanks to a license plate reader called Flock ALPR, which has sparked a debate in Surprise about the price of giving up some privacy rights to feel safer.

More than a year after Surprise Police joined other Valley cities — and thousands across the nation — in using the Flock camera system, the Surprise City Council held its first public airing of the controversial system during a Sept. 16 work session after one resident who opposes the system pushed the council to discuss it.

Flock cameras use license plate reader technology to help officers find suspects on the run by capturing their plates, vehicle types and colors when they pass the cameras.

Law enforcement agencies love the system because it helps them do their jobs by connecting with other jurisdictions to track a suspect.

But residents seem divided. Some feel they are a Constitutional violation of privacy, while other homeowners gladly give local police access to their doorbell cameras for extra safety.

“This program helps us keep safe, not only for the citizens standpoint, but from officer’s standpoint, too,” Police Chief Even Becher told the council.

In Surprise, 23 Flock cameras ­— placed at high-traffic or strategic signaled intersections — collect information called a “vehicle fingerprint” when motorists go by them.

Data from the cameras, which are mostly installed along the commercial corridors of Bell and Waddell roads, is stored for 30 days.

Four police crime analysts who work in the department’s Real Time Crime Center can review it, when needed. When they do, they must report when and why they accessed the information.

Everything Flock collects is connected to the National Crime Information Center, an FBI database that flags vehicles to help law enforcement in multiple jurisdictions nab a possible criminal.

But sharing information is one of the things that bothers Surprise resident James Ellis, who confronted three council members at a district meetup this month, sparking the full council to discuss it.

Ellis calls the sharing of information a “mass artificial intelligence surveillance system of law-abiding citizens.”

“Law enforcement in Missouri could pull up your information if they wanted to,” Ellis said. “They don’t even have to know you.”

Surprise Mayor Kevin Sartor told the rest of council the city needs to do “everything we can” to ensure its safety as it weighed the pros and cons of the program during the work session.

“I think there’s a balance between safeguarding our city and privacy,” Sartor said during the work session. “There are a lot of safeguards in place, and I think by and large, residents support the police. I think they support the police to do what they have to do to catch the bad actors in our city.”

Ellis said he believes the city installed the cameras in March 2024 with little fanfare and no discussion by council, which set off alarm bells for him.

But when the council finally did discuss it, he called it an “orchestrated horse and pony show.”

“I have no doubt that the implementation and procurement process with Flock safety and the Surprise Police Department was done intentionally and quietly behind doors to avoid a city council work session and to avoid any questions from our elected city leaders and most importantly the residents of Surprise, including myself,” Ellis said after the meeting. “I thought for sure having a newly elected mayor and some new council members on the dais we would see more transparency within our city, but that doesn’t seem to be the situation currently. I was taught early in life that doing the right thing can be the most difficult thing to do,. We didn’t see that (Sept. 16) from our leaders.”

Ellis has argued to council members that people who drive past the same intersection with a Flock camera on their daily route will be indefinitely tracked in the system, which he said could leave open the possibility of misuse or the system getting hacked.

When Councilmember Patrick Duffy asked Becher if a driver would remain in the system when a camera captured him or her traveling on the same route everyday, the chief answered, “Potentially, yes.”

But Becher argued the cameras, which are installed at about one-third of Surprise’s signaled intersections, are considered a crucial tool in solving some crimes. He said capturing the suspect of the high-profile stabbing of the McDonald’s employee was only possible because Flock cameras tracked him from Scottsdale to Surprise.

“God knows what he would have done if we didn’t apprehend him at that moment,” Becher told the council.

Gina Busby, chief information security officer for Surprise, said each camera cost $3,000 with another $15,000 spent on the software, which is an annual fee.

Vice Mayor Jack Hastings pointed out that the system altogether is about 0.002% of the police department’s $56 million budget.

“It’s a relatively small amount to spend on something that can save lives,” Hastings said.

Busby said across the nation, Flock cameras read 20 billion plates every month in 49 states, 5,000 communities and 4,800 connected law enforcement agencies.

Most of the West Valley cities are on board, although cities like Flagstaff have delayed renewing its Flock contract because of the same privacy concerns.

Flock officials said the cameras do not use facial recognition and won’t be used for traffic enforcement. Surprise Police spokesman, Sgt. Rick Hernandez, said license plates can only be searched during active investigations.

“I think this kind of really just kind of comes down to if you trust police officers or not,” Hastings said.

Councilmember Nick Haney presented a worst-case scenario if police removed the cameras.

“The last thing I think any of us want is if, God forbid, someone takes someone’s child and we had this opportunity to have this technology to track that person down, and we didn’t utilize it,” Haney said. “I think that’s something that we’d all going to lose sleep over.”

The same day Surprise announced the police force would be using the Flock camera system in March 2024, it also revealed a partnership with the Dysart Unified School District to give the department remote access to the camera network at the district’s 26 schools. The deal gives police access to live video feeds on campuses during emergency situations.

It is an arrangement like one Mesa Police has with Mesa Public Schools, and Glendale Police has with the Peoria Unified School District, which has several schools in that city.

Surprise Police tout the ability to receive important real-time information to respond to any incidents at DUSD.

Residents and businesses can also give police access to their privately owned cameras through the Surprise Safe community camera registration program. HOAs can also choose to participate with cameras around the neighborhood.

“We are crossing the threshold of where we shouldn’t be crossing,” Ellis said.

To help spread the word to residents who may also share his concerns, the former firefighter posted the information on Facebook.

“If you’re going to employ this technology on citizens that pay for this system, be honest about it,” Ellis said.

Arizona state Rep. Nick Kupper, who serves District 25 that covers parts of Surprise all the way to Yuma, said he’s not a fan of government surveillance, either.

“The concept sounds good and it would enable police to probably do their job a little better,” Kupper said. “But, unfortunately, there are too many negatives from a privacy standpoint, from a Fourth Amendment standpoint.”

Kupper said the use of the cameras may be a conversation at the state level.

“It’s a very slippery slope with a Flock system run by a government,” Kupper said.

Kupper said some people don’t mind giving up some personal rights in exchange for greater safety, which is why some homeowners hand over access to their doorbell cameras.

“When people are scared, people don’t make rational decisions,” Kupper said.

In addition to privacy concerns, Ellis said he believes he learned firsthand the Flock cameras make mistakes.

In April, El Mirage Police visited his Surprise home to inquire about a hit-and-run incident earlier in the day on El Mirage Road and Olive Avenue. He was told his 2016 brown Nissan Pathfinder with a firefighter sticker on the back, matched what one witnesses described about the car that sped away, even though at the time of the incident Ellis was taking his daughter to an appointment.

After showing the officer evidence he wasn’t involved in a crash, he asked if a Flock camera had tracked him because they arrived no more than 15 minutes after he arrived home.

“I know the system works, but I think it’s pretty intrusive,” Ellis said.

After requesting body cam footage from El Mirage, Ellis learned the crash involved another vehicle, a small, goldish brown hatchback SUV.

Ellis filed a complaint to the town of El Mirage to conduct an internal investigation of the incident, but Police Chief Paul Marzocca sent Ellis a letter telling him officers were in compliance with all department procedures and they did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights of unreasonable searches and seizures from the government.

“I think just to catch a couple of bad guys here and there and then to basically violate our rights, I don’t think it’s a good system,” Ellis said. “We need to be careful about our individual liberties and our privacy.”

Jason Stone can be reached at jstone@iniusa.org. Visit yourvalley.net. We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.

Jason Stone
Senior News Editor | Surprise

jstone@iniusa.com

Meet Jason
Jason Stone joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2019, after a distinguished three decade media career that included stops at the Arizona Republic, iHeart Media/Clear Channel and Beckett Sports Card magazine. He remembers when airports sold newspapers.

Community: He is a big supporter of the Valley's original sports team: The Phoenix Suns.

Education: Northern Arizona University with a BS in broadcast journalism and a minor in sports coaching.

Random Fact: The capital of Nebraska is Lincoln.

Hobbies: Surfing, backgammon and men who aren't afraid to cry.