Flock cameras escalate the battle between privacy and safety in St. Louis

0:00This is St. Louis on the Air from St. Louis Public Radio. I'm Elaine Cha. All across the country, people are debating the pros and cons of flock cameras and automated license plate readers, also called ALPRs for short. The technology is everywhere. In the St. Louis area alone, there are more than 1,000 of these devices collecting and storing information about driver movements. Today we'll dive into various perspectives on the issue. And to start us off, we have Luke Nozika, a senior reporter for NPR's Midwest Newsroom and St. Louis Public Radio. He's here to talk us through some of the basics about this technology and how so many ALPRs have made their way into the St. Louis region. Luke, it's great to have you back on the show. Hey, thanks so much for having me. Luke, let's start with what and how. What exactly are automated license plate readers and how are they used?

1:02Sure, yeah, automated license plate readers. You might see them driving around town at intersections. They are solar powered cameras and AI powered cameras that essentially capture license plates as you drive by, as well as characteristics about each vehicle that passes them. So they can include things like the data they capture includes the make model of a car and bumper stickers, things like that. A private company called Flux Safety is the largest provider in the US of these cameras. They now have 120,000 cameras across the country and say that they scan more than 20 billion plates every month in every state except Alaska. So they've really created a vast surveillance network through this private company. Talk with us about who brings these cameras in. Talking police departments, city councils, private entities. Yeah, kind of all of the above. Flux advertises itself to police departments and sheriff's office, sheriff's offices largely

2:03now, which have found them to be extremely useful cameras. You know, it's almost as if you have a police officer, even almost better than that at an intersection to take a picture of vehicles. And so it was actually created by an engineer in Atlanta who was frustrated that his local police department could not solve the break ins of their cars down there. And it's just really ballooned since then. I guess just to give an example, some police departments here say that the cameras have assisted in hundreds of investigations that includes in university city, which says that it has assisted in more than 800 plus investigations ranging from kind of stolen cars to more serious violent crimes. One listener named Liz asks about the oversight. I mean, does anyone outside police departments and private companies provide oversight to how this data is utilized? That's a great question. And I think it's one that lawmakers are now currently trying to grapple with as they seek to regulate this technology that's already out in the world.

3:05So police departments are kind of able to set their own privacy settings within flock to see if their data would be shared with other agencies across the country. But when there is misuse and abuse of the system and we've seen a number of these cases across the country, police departments largely police themselves. So an example of this is an investigation last month by the Washington Post show that there was kind of a basic lack of oversight that the post was able to identify at least two cases where officers misused the system by just using publicly available data and that they caught that in a way that the police department hadn't even done that yet. So we've been careful to say flock cameras, flock safety and ALPRs and flock safety is, you know, it is the best known supplier of these cameras, but they are not the only company that is creating these, right? Yes, that's right. Yeah, other companies include Motorola, the phone company and a company called Axon.

4:08There's a website called Deflock that kind of seeks, it's an open source website and map where volunteers can essentially hop in and document when they've seen a camera. And like you mentioned, they're, you know, spanning from the city of St. Louis out to like the western edges of the greater region. There are more than a thousand of these cameras now. The public backlash against these cameras is increasing and this is happening all over the country as well as here in the St. Louis region. Luke, what is driving that? Yeah, these cameras have come under great scrutiny lately. If you think about surveillance generally, you know, if you use a smartphone or we're kind of surveilled in a number of ways, but these cameras have really just blossomed everywhere. And it's taking pictures and collecting data of people who aren't committing crimes, who are just going about their day. And so I think that has really enraged people. Anyhow, critics like the ACLU have said that this has essentially created a vast and warrantless surveillance network.

5:09Returning to oversight, Roscoe asks, considering there has been much public discussion of police abuse of this technology, what guardrails are municipalities putting around access of this tech, you know, among employees. Yeah, so local municipalities have some of them have launched audits into the use to kind of screen to see if officers are misusing the system. I should note from the state level, Missouri is among more than 20 states that currently does not have, has little to no oversight of automatic license plate readers. It seems like there's a growing number of Missouri lawmakers interested in changing that though. So for just a little bit of history, two years ago, there was legislation introduced by two Republicans here that would have completely banned ALPRs across the state, but that legislation didn't really go anywhere. And then during this last legislative session, Representative Lequisha Bosley, a Democrat of from here in St. Louis introduced a bill that would have limited the police use of

6:10this data to criminal investigations and cases of missing people. It would have also prohibited it from being used in immigration enforcement, which has kind of been a more controversial piece of this in more liberal states. And she was also, as well as other lawmakers, have been interested in introducing penalties for officers who misuse the system. So I spoke with Representative Jeff Vernetty, who's a Republican, who represents an area in the Lake of the Ozarks. And he believes that officers who misuse the system should face a felony charge and be barred from working in law enforcement in the future. Do you have any sense of how much support there is for making something like that a felony? Yeah. So two years ago, when two Republicans introduced legislation about this, like I mentioned, it didn't really go anywhere. It seems like there's a growing movement to regulate these cameras in some way and introduce penalties. I asked Missouri Governor Mike Keeho's office about this, and his spokesperson this morning said that given the privacy concerns over this technology, Governor Keeho and his team

7:13are currently considering options on regulation. So it seems like there's some movement to make that happen. Is there anything that comes to mind for you in so far as the bipartisan kind of push for there, there's some, there being some kind of regulation? And is that something that also exists in the other states that you cover as a reporter for the Midwest newsroom? Yeah. So Missouri, like Iowa, have little to no regulation, like I mentioned, of automated license plate readers. Some other Midwest states, I think looking at the general Midwest, Minnesota has the most robust law around this. It prohibits the use of this data being used for immigration enforcement and kind of sets out other guidelines for how this is used to protect everyday drivers. So yeah, Missouri's kind of lacks law on this or no law on this. The fact that Missouri Statues are kind of silent on ALPRs is different from at least 13

8:16other states that require routine audits of officers' uses of this data to kind of again detect abuse. As we close, Luke, you said before this segment that you have had flock on your mind maybe for the past a month or so, and later this month you have a piece that is going to be published. What can we look forward to reading in that coverage? Yeah. We're kind of just trying to nail down what exactly lawmakers are thinking about ahead of the legislative session over this, just because there has been so much recent backlash. So it'll be interesting to see lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed outrage of this, what they will actually sit down to do and hash out what the regulation they will hash out will look like. Luke Nozika is a senior reporter for NPR's Midwest Newsroom and St. Louis Public Radio. Thank you for coming on the show today. Yep, thank you for having me. We're talking about the use of flock and automated license plate reader cameras on today's show.

9:16Growing number of residents have concerns about the technology and law enforcement agencies say these devices enable them to deter and solve crime. The city of Hazelwood in St. Louis County has had automated license plate readers since 2011, though their use of flock safety cameras is more recent. This morning I spoke with Lieutenant Shane Parish about why these cameras were installed and how they're being used. He's been with the Hazelwood Police Department for 29 years. I started by asking him why the automated license plate readers were installed back in 2011. A federal grant became available and we installed one set of cameras on a police car. They were mobile and it was basically just our introduction to the license plate recognition system and it worked out well on helping us document vehicles in the area.

10:18And over time did you install more of them because you felt that they were working well for your purposes? Yes, yes we did. In September of, let me see here, in September of 23 we became fully operational with a company called flock. And at that time we have, at this time we have 10 cameras within our city from flock that are budgeted for the city of Hazelwood. We also have two HOAs and one business within town that have a contract with flock as well and we have access to their data. And what are some of the crimes that you all have been able to solve because these cameras have been used? You know it goes from anything from illegal dumping to homicides. Our traffic unit uses it quite often for leaving the scene of accidents.

11:18It can be used for thefts, it can be used for missing persons. Anything with a motor vehicle involved has a tremendous help. And how specifically do these cameras and the information they are collecting help you to solve these cases perhaps in ways that other technology does not? Well, it gives us the evidence we need for a vehicle that's in the area when a crime was committed and we use that information based off that vehicle to develop suspects. What were your means of getting information before these cameras began being used? Before it would be out there on the streets knocking on doors trying to locate a witness who observed the crime looking for surveillance systems from businesses who might have caught a vehicle in the area drive through at least with flock.

12:20We now have hopefully a license plate that we're able to identify or some kind of identifying marks a little bit easier to help us develop these leads. Lieutenant, have there ever been any mistakes that have happened with this technology things like false positives? Yes, and we discussed that every officer here that he's a police department goes through training on how to utilize and use these systems and it is told that they must verify before actually acting on the information provided by flock. They must verify that the plate is still actively wanted or the information is correct before they act and make a stop. And when such mistakes occur, how do you rectify the situation?

13:21Well, it is a training concern and issue. There is a retraining that could be or maybe a training that could be made or it could be disciplinary action. What are some of the things that the citizens and residents of Hazelwood have said to you and your colleagues at the department about the use of these cameras? We hear both positives and negatives from the citizens' residents. I received calls quite frequently from people who are not happy and feel that it's a violation of their rights. They don't want to be tracked, things of that nature. But then I have victims of crime or their families who are ecstatic that we were able to develop that lead that led to the apprehension of a criminal to what their victim of a crime to.

14:26Given the kind of conversation that has been going on around the use of this technology and you mentioned that you get calls from people who are not happy with its being used. Are you all at the Hazelwood Police Department open to conversations about whether to pursue further use of these cameras or potentially changing the way that you employ them? Yes, we are open to conversations. We're more than happy to explain how we use them. And I do want to add that the Hazelwood Police Department audits the users of these programs monthly to ensure that they're being used properly and not being misused. There are state statutes out there that employees could be prosecuted for if they abuse it and we make them aware in the training process that is an option for us if we find

15:32that they're misusing the system. Lieutenant Shane Parish of the Hazelwood Police Department. Thank you so much for joining us today. You're welcome. We need to take a quick break but we'll be back shortly to continue this conversation. We also want to hear from you. Have you noticed these flock cameras or automatic license plate readers in your neighborhood? How do you feel about their use? Call us at 314-382-8255. That's 314-382-TALK. You can also send an email to talk at stlpr.org. We'll be right back. This is St. Louis on the Air on St. Louis Public Radio. Support comes from Mosby Building Arts. You don't need to move to get the upgrades you've always

16:38wanted in your home. Stay where you love and remodel what you don't with Mosby. Makeover ideas at callmosby.com. Welcome back. On today's show we're talking about the widespread use of flock cameras and automatic license plate reader technology, a subject that's been generating a great deal of discussion all around the country. Before the break we heard how the Hazelwood Police Department in St. Louis County has employed ALPR technology since 2011 and flock safety since 2023. University City is also part of St. Louis County. That's where our next guest Al Shod resides. It's also where the organized members of the UCD chapter of Deflock, a nationwide group that advocates against the use of deflock technology. Al, welcome to St. Louis on the Air. Hi, thanks for having me. So tell us first what was the impetus for getting involved in this work

17:40and why is it important to you? Yeah, so at the beginning of this year I was just kind of doing a personal deep dive into digital privacy and security. I don't have any tech background. I don't have any surveillance background. I don't have any community organizing background. But I was already looking into this topic and sort of inevitably came across flock in these online spaces. I checked the deflock.org map that was mentioned in the previous segment. Saw that there were a bunch of cameras in university city and was like, oh, I don't like this and I need to do something about it. So and part of it for me was I have a background working with international populations. At the beginning of this year we were coming off the tail end of all the ice raids in Minnesota. And so that was a major concern to me because you know,

18:41you city has a large international population. But the more I've learned about these cameras, even if that is not an issue that resonates with you, there's many many other reasons to oppose these cameras. Speaking of the cameras, where are most of the surveillance cameras that are in university city located? Yeah, so most of them seem to be in the third word of university which is sort of the northern and eastern area of university city which is also generally the more like lower socioeconomic area of university city as well. Was that a surprise at all? It was not for me. I've heard that it is common for them to be in areas of lower socioeconomic status that seems to be pretty common. So I wasn't really surprised

19:45by that just based on the knowledge that I have. One of the things we heard from listeners came from Ron who says there are some legitimate uses for this technology catching illegal dumping, missing persons, violent crime, like anything society will adapt and that kind of aligns with some of the things that we heard before the break from Lieutenant Parish at Hazelwood Police Department. We also heard from Ronda who says they have one, this would be a camera, they have one of the entrance of my complex. We can't even leave without being monitored. It's like house arrest without a bracelet. We also have Tom from St. Louis on the line. Tom, welcome to St. Louis on the air. Yes, thank you. I listened to the officer from Hazelwood and there are certainly people in our neighborhoods doing bad things and it's natural to want to do everything we can to make our

20:47heard. But I think right now is a good time for the big picture view. Any technology we have, any power that we have will be misused at some point or do you see that with these spot cameras. And we are putting in place the technology for an authoritarian, you know, techno state all around us and all that's required once this technology, the surveillance technologies in places is politicians who are willing to use it that way. And I really think we need to think about whether we want to live in that kind of world. Thank you so much for calling Tom. You can join our conversation as well by calling us at 314-3828255. That's 314-382-TALK. Hearing from Tom and what has been shared from your experience, Al, what is the range of political affiliations or

21:49allegiances of people who are coming together to advocate against these cameras? And again, before the break we heard from Luke Nozika, kind of about the bipartisan effort, is that reflected also in the folks that you are seeing or participating in deflog? Yes, so I love Tom's comment and this is a really great question. So I have been fascinated by how bipartisan this issue has been, particularly in a country that is so deeply divided right now. But if you're looking at the news, a lot of the legislative action that is taking place right now is coming from Republican legislators. But it's really quite a depth and breadth of people that take issue with this and for a lot of different reasons. But it really does seem to be uniting people against this company and this technology.

22:50Eric asks, how can we get laws passed to outlaw all ALPR devices on public roadways, statewide and federally? Al, what laws would you like to see passed? That's a great question. So I personally am not a big fan of surveillance and do not really want it around. So I would love to see bans on this equipment throughout the state. I hear a lot of lawmakers expressing doubt that a full ban would be likely, but I've also seen the same politicians say they personally would like to see a ban. So I think if more people speak up about what they actually want, I hope that's something that we can see happen. University City resident and D-Flock, U-City Organizer, Al Shodd. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. We need to take a quick break. When we return, we'll continue today's show

23:54about flock, camera and automatic license plate reader use in the St. Louis area and we'll dive into privacy and other concerns people have about the technology. This is St. Louis on the air, on St. Louis Public Radio. If you have a smart speaker, you have access to the entire world of NPR and St. Louis Public Radio. All the latest news and all the captivating stories. Activate our voices with yours by telling your smart speaker to play St. Louis Public Radio. Welcome back. For those of you just joining us now, today's show is focused on different positions regarding the use of flock cameras and

24:57automatic license plate readers in the St. Louis region. So far, we've heard perspectives from a reporter covering the issue, a local law enforcement officer and an activist advocating for eliminating flock camera usage and we have two new voices to join this discussion. Neil Richards is a privacy law expert and professor at Washington University. Thanks for being here and welcome. Thank you for having me. We also had Edward McPherson. He's also at Wash You, an English professor and the author of Lookout. That's a book about mapping and surveillance over the last few centuries. Welcome to Thanks for having me. So let's begin right off with a listener note. Maria says, I'm shocked at how there are so many of them now, but we really didn't know it was happening. I think we should have the notified that we are now under surveillance. It's like we blinked and they were here and all across America all at once. So is this really a sudden shift that is a partnership between

26:06private surveillance companies and public law enforcement agencies or has it just gotten more attention recently? Edward, I think it's probably the latter. I noticed them going up in my neighborhood during the pandemic and I noticed them walking to campus and I thought maybe it was just telling Neil this that it was a system to dim the street lights from migrating birds based on the sort of crunchy logo in the innocuous lowercase typeface. But so they've been going up and there's an ACLU report on them 2022. It's interesting that it's now capturing such public attention right now. Neil, I understand that you're from U-City. Yes. And we just talked with somebody who is also a resident of that municipality. What have you seen on the ground or from your car and on the deflock map? So I've been studying privacy at WashU since 2003. So I've been thinking about these issues for a long time. I've noticed there have been surveillance cameras in

27:12St. Louis in University City for well over 10, 15 years at this point. What's interesting is when I looked into this because there's lots and lots of technologies. Fluck is only one of them. But when I looked into the deflock map, I was also struck by the fact there was one by my house on Forest Park Parkway, but almost all the rest of them are we live in the southern part of U-City by WashU and the overwhelming bulk of them are in the northeast corner in a predominantly black area. The development of these surveillance technologies over time. How do you flock cameras and ALPRs today compare with what has existed in the past? Edward? I mean like Neil's saying, in some ways there's nothing new under the sun. I think the cameras are getting better. The pictures are sharper. But you're right that this is not necessarily new. Big tech invading our privacy. We carry smartphones. You sign up for a step counter and you hit agree on

28:18the service agreement and it turns out it's selling your location data to somebody, possibly the law enforcement. So this kind of surveillance has happened. I think flock is just so, it's A, it's visible in the neighborhood. Once you start seeing the poles and the cameras, you see them everywhere and you realize that's what they are. And it's also, it's very difficult to opt out. I can not carry a cell phone. I cannot use my credit card. I can do things. But you know, maybe I could bike, but they also pick up bikes. So yes. Yeah, I think the big change, there's really even two. The flock cameras are different from prior automatic license plate readers because they don't just read the license plates. They read the, they use AI to image the the make and model and distinctive characteristics, almost like tattoos for your car. Right. Would you look at criminal suspects? I think that's an additional capability and I think it raises the spectra facial recognition technology as the next step. The other thing I think and this was interesting, the officer from Hazelton mentioned their first AOPR reader was from a federal grant and it was a mobile license plate

29:24reader. It was a single car. It could read them when there's a particular interest in particular areas. What we're seeing here is the density of the cameras has geometrically increased and their permanency by mounting them on poles that are permanently, they're permanently on, permanently watching as a meaningful difference from putting them in the back of a police car and maybe using it for a few hours a day. What do you make a flock safety cameras? We'd like you to join our conversation by calling 314-382-8255. That's 314-382-TALK. A listener named John says, I have no issue with cameras for safety and security. I have an issue with who has access to the information. If a crime is committed, a bench warrant should be issued for access to specific data. Officers using them to stock folks is proof their needs to be checks and balances. They also shouldn't be used by corporations to track people like we are their product. So Neil, what does this bring to mind for you and is this characterization of when a bench warrant

30:32needs to be issued? Is this correct? There's a lot in that comment. On the whole, I agree with it. These can be useful tools, but they can also be tremendously dangerous tools. What has happened is they have crept in below the public cognizance, below the attention of lawmakers. They're now everywhere. It's not just flocks, it's ring doorbell cameras, and these are also linked. The data sharing agreements are not really regulated by any kind of law. It's up to individual police departments and it's largely up to the companies. I think what we need to have are a set of rules that are reasonable, that allow police to do reasonable investigations of the public interest, that protect against abuse, and that limit the specter of a surveillance state, which I think is literally what we're talking about here. Are there certain rules that you have in mind? Absolutely. There's an open question under the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court had a case on this just this past summer, the Chattory case. The Supreme Court has suggested that when the police

31:36are using technologies, GPS devices mounted on cars, location history from phones, cell site location information, a warrant is required when they're getting people's locations. There's a good argument under the Constitution that this is unconstitutional. More generally, I think we need to have a general statute that regulates this that requires a warrant before these can be used, that makes their use exceptional and targeted rather than general and indiscriminate. That's exactly what we did in this country in 1968 with the passage of the Wiretap Act, which made it a crime for police to wiretap without a warrant, which made it a crime for individuals to wiretap without a warrant, but provided procedures by which the police could get the evidence they need if they demonstrate a specific case against a specific subject rather than this kind of dragnet surveillance enabled by new technologies. Is there anything coming to mind for you Edward? Well, sure, even just locally in St. Louis, there was the plan for the quote-unquote spy plane persistent surveillance systems, which

32:36before it really got up and running here, you know, ran a foul in Baltimore where they tried to test and it was a fourth amendment breach, you know, search and seizure. So, different tech and we don't quite have time probably to go into it, but similar dragnet capturing basically patterns of life. And that's where it gets problematic. St. Louis has often been compared to Baltimore, so it's interesting that that is where it started. You were talking earlier Edward about, you know, not carrying your cell phone, not carrying your credit card, not wearing a watch. Dave says, I have no personal concerns about flock cameras. I know from experience that privacy in public is long gone. I mean, how much of that that is true? How much privacy can and should we expect in public? I think we, you know, in America, well everywhere, but, you know, we have this battle between privacy and supposed safety. I think what's kind of insidious about the dragnet of flock is the way, you know, it affects not just,

33:42you know, maybe you're like, well, there are two things. One, if it works, then there's patterns of abuse that you want to watch out for, but also, you know, you might modify your behavior. You might not do lawful things because you think you might get incorrectly swept up in a dragnet. And that's a problem. Like, I won't go hear her speak even though I've every right to because I might show up on someone's list or I might not go to that house of worship or I might not go to that neighborhood. And this is the way that sort of the panopticon, which is a sort of fancy 18th century turn, we start to internalize our own oppression and don't do things that we have the right to do because we're worried about showing up and being incorrectly targeted. And as we've already said on the show today, if you're in a vulnerable population, being incorrectly targeted has real world consequences that panopticon is exactly what I was seeing in my mind, Neil. Yeah, I wrote a book about this very question about three years ago. It's called Why Privacy Matters. And it's about, well, why privacy matters. And I think one of the things that's important to push back on is

34:44it might be the case that people might not expect privacy in public. But I think it's essential in a democratic society that we demand the right to have privacy in public, have privacy of our movements and privacy of our associations. These technologies operate like a time machine, right? Your Google location history, which was what was involved in the Supreme Court case this past summer has a record of everywhere you go unless you turn it off. And I think that's the really important lesson here. And that's why I'm encouraged by the ground swell of opposition to flock cameras in particular, which I think reflects a general sentiment among Americans that privacy is a valuable fundamental right and it's something that we should continue to have and continue to fight for. Something that came to mind for me, I lived in Korea for some time and close captioned television is everywhere. So as we think about the norms in other countries, is there something about wanting or expecting that privacy that is very particularly

35:46new American? Either of you Edward? I mean, it's individualism, right? We prize that. And there are moments in history where we've decided sort of collectively or people have decided in power collectively that we're going to sacrifice some privacy for the quote unquote public good, you know, 9-11 comes to mind, even the pandemic. I think people were willing to trade away some of their privacy for public health in terms of apps that would share location data or track who you've been with or make a virus trend maps, things like that. But that, I think in general in this country, we're very wary about those kind of things. I was born in Europe in England and while Americans are very fond of talking about their privacy, American privacy law lags massively behind the rest of the world. The United States is the only advanced economy in the world without a general privacy statute and that's something that should change. Gus from Ferguson called in to ask a question about how artificial intelligence interacts with

36:47flock and concerns about anthropic developing really advanced surveillance and what risks this might pose. What do you think of that, Neil? Absolutely. As I said at the outset, flock is only one technology. We should be concerned about not just ALPRs but also ring cameras and other forms of surveillance. We should be concerned about metaclasses. One of the interesting things about anthropic is they pushed back on the administration earlier this year. They were concerned that its tools were going to be used for military applications, which is something else we should be concerned about. But also for mass surveillance. AI can do surveillance at scale. Just as AI can read the Macon model and distinguishing characteristic dense and stickers and bumper stickers on a car, it can also be used for facial recognition. That's the new frontier of the fight. That's something American law has really failed to come to terms with. That's really the really scary future technology. It wouldn't all be that difficult to add facial recognition to flock cameras.

37:50There's some incredible information that matter is considering adding facial recognition to its so-called smart glasses. One of the things that Lieutenant Parish did mention about the flock cameras is that it captures only the rear of a car, not the front. So what you're talking about, just when we hit a future is what might be, it was what might be coming, coming. That is. It only captures the rear because they pointed at the rear. I think that's a very simplistic argument. Like the one that flock makes that we don't surveil people, we surveil vehicles. If the police department knows your license plate number, this is a surveillance of people going about their business and it's indiscriminate in the way it's often being deployed. Yes, Edward. I think another component of the AI question and makes this different is, I mean, we've had these cameras around, but coupling them with AI, which is deeply flawed. AI can do some things very well, but machine vision is still very difficult. It gets things wrong.

38:57So I think playing up a list of everyone, you know, I mean, it gets the license plate numbers wrong. We're talking about something in block letters on a reflective flat board. And then when you're adding things like make and models of cars, there's just so many ways that it goes wrong. And then you get an incorrect target. And that's a problem. Doug asks, if flock records, I'm sorry, if flock records me going into a hospital and sells that information to someone else, is that a HIPPA violation? Can my health insurance company purchase information from flock? If I walk out of the pharmacy with visible prescriptions in hand, can flock legally sell that data to others? Neil, what say you to Doug? HIPPA is a very complicated statute, but in some respect, it's very simple. flock is not covered by HIPPA. All right, there's the response there. Terry asks that they a Terry that is says that they haven't seen any flock cameras adding they are irrelevant to regular

40:00law abiding citizens. And Marlene agrees with Terry saying they aren't concerned because I'm not a criminal Edward. Well, this gets back to the, I mean, if they work, and again, I think there's real question with the efficacy of the data, whether they can read correctly, whether the AI can sift through the data and give you a list that's accurate, that's, we have one set of problems there. And if they don't work, then you have this other set of problems. So even if your life is an open book, you might wind up on someone's list. And if you have any sort of, you know, if you're in any way precarious in your situation, you don't want to knock on your door. You don't want to police stop. And I think again, we've seen real world consequences to police knocking on the wrong door. We have Ron, who is calling from Ferguson. Ron, welcome to the show. Well, I would say with technology, once it comes out of the box, it's hard to put back, it'd be almost impossible to eliminate cell phones. And I think you'd have a better look

41:02at eliminating cell phones than eliminating flock cameras. I think the best thing we could do is put safeguards in at the different police departments that find or get them fired immediately for misusing them. Just like you can misuse the fire on, there, you know, a lot of people want to ban guns, but unfortunately, they will not be banned. So we have to live with it. And I am a component because I believe that it makes significantly better policing where the police have information. And of course, with AI, you always have to have human intervention to determine whether the information you're getting from the system is correct. So long as you have some humans that look at the information and say, yeah, this is good or it's bad. I don't really have a fear of it. I do have a fear that we go to a more dictatorial type of government that it would be misused. But that could happen in a flash if it overnight, if the

42:02democratic process change. Sure. Thank you, Ron. So there are a couple of different things that Ron brought up there. I want to talk first about safeguards in police departments. So that is something Neil that you've brought up and Edward, I would assume that that is something that would come to mind for you as well. We have reason to believe that safeguards are not going to work. And a recent example of that was the St. Charles County police department. And that is a discontinuation of use by that department of flock safety license plate readers because it was not a police officer that abused the system. It was a former civilian employee. So I mean, what are some of the things that we need to keep in mind regarding safeguards? I think if we don't have safeguards in place, we're going to have abuses. I think we're going to abuse it anyway. But I think

43:02as we do with wiretapping, we need to say if you're going to use these technologies, they should be used sparingly. You should go to a judge and get a warrant. You should have probable calls. And none of these safeguards are currently in place. And I think it's not just the procedures that are necessary. It's the volume of these cameras. And I think jurisdictions that have made the choice to ban ALPRs, particularly permanent flock ALPRs, just as jurisdictions, including St. Louis, took the decision to ban red light cameras. I don't think these technologies are inevitable. We as a democracy can make choices about what sorts of technology you want to have in place. And I think we have not focused enough on this question. And we need to look at these things a lot more carefully and place limitations on their existence and then limitations on their use and have real penalties for abuse. Whether that's by police officers, whether that's by civilian employees, or whether that's by the companies themselves that are quite inscrutable about what they're doing with all the data and are often sharing data with other police departments around the country or using it for their own purposes. We have Janet who's calling from Webster Groves. Janet, welcome.

44:08Hello. Hi. Edward Snowden was brought all these topics up back in 2013 when he worked for the CIA. And then he also advanced to the National Security Agency. And we all know what happened to Ed Snowden. He was criminalized. He lives in Russia now because of this. Things should have been looked at then that was over 10 years ago. And here we are. It's like nobody in the government is really preserving our rights and citizens. Janet, thank you. Edward, is there anything that comes to mind hearing what Janet has said there? I mean, it's been a long struggle. That's all I would say. And I think what we're really missing is, yes, we've seen this on the horizon and there's just shockingly little research, independent research on again, whether these cameras work and whether they help close cases. Because we're basically proceeding by anecdote for every police department that has kind of an amazing story of how a crime is solved quickly and faster than ever before the

45:10sort of techno utopia. There's a dystopian version where the Brentwood police officer is using flock to stock his ex-wife during a contentious divorce or a Texas officer is tracking a woman across state lines as she tries to get an abortion. So we're going sort of back and forth and every throwing out stories. And it's just I think it's interesting that the companies themselves have not been invested in actually studying some of those questions. I would just say two things. The benefits of these technologies are overblown. They're often exaggerated by the company. It's interesting that the officer from Hazelwood, Hazelton, Hazelwood. Hazelwood. He mentioned the primary benefit is people who dump their trash and drive away. I mean, I think that's a fairly steep price to pay for civil liberties. The other thing that I would say is thinking about Edward Snowden and Janet's question. One of the more interesting Snowden revelations was NSA officers were using their tools to track potential dates or potential love interests, which is exactly

46:10the kind of abuse we're seeing with flock cameras all around the country. And I think it's a further illustration of the need for real oversight both and how they're used and how many of these there are. Katie wrote and said, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but surveillance cameras are going up regardless. And if they get cut down, they'll just make them better. You think Katie is right on that and well, it's tricky. I mean, the flock, the CEO of flock itself has said that their their drone operations are their biggest growth market right now. And so there is, you can see them pivoting possibly. If the cameras are being troubled on the ground, then we'll just put the eyes in the sky. And they are, they're very excited about this sort of out of the box AI drone system that they're right now marketing towards law enforcement agencies, but they really want to sell to public companies, big box stores. Once the, once the FAA loosened some, some drone restrictions. And then that's also

47:11just scary. That's where you're, maybe you were assumed to be shoplifting instead of being stopped at the door and having your pocket searched. There's a drone launched from the top of the store that follows you home. And guess what? It's kind of hard to follow a car home with a drone. We've seen that go awry, but all the while it's sifting through your property records and your tech, your credit history and so on and deciding whether or not to send someone to knock on your door. So, so they're pivoting quick. I don't think we can trust private companies to some nice, but the public could first. And Neil, in 20 seconds, what's your thought there? J. Edgar Hoover's FBI used its wiretapping powers for decades to subvert people's civil liberties and keep track of enemies. The passage of the wiretapping brought that under control, we can do the same with ALPRs and other kinds of new digital AI-powered surveillance technologies. Neil Richards is a privacy law expert and professor at Washington University and Edwork McPherson is author of Lookout and an English professor at Wash You. Thank you both for joining us today.

48:11Thanks. Thank you. This episode was produced by Emily Woodward, audio engineering and podcast design by Aaron Doerr. Our executive producer is Alex Hoyer. St. Louis on the air is a production of St. Louis Public Radio. Understanding starts here. Do you find yourself regularly listening to episodes of St. Louis on the air? Suggest us to a friend you think might enjoy our conversations. And leave a serve you in rating on Apple podcasts on the App Store. It's the simplest way to help people discover our show. Thanks. St. Louis Public Radio is a member-supported service of the University of Missouri St. Louis.