Flock Cameras in Evansville: Public Safety Tool or Privacy Concern?

By Jacob Barnwell

Editor’s Note: This story was reported by Jacob Barnwell, an Our Times Recorder. While attending an Evansville City Council meeting, Barnwell heard residents with DeFlock Evansville raise concerns about Flock cameras. His curiosity led him to ask more questions, interview local officials and advocates, and dig deeper into how the technology is being used in our community. His reporting reflects the vision behind the Community Power Network.

Evansville uses Flock Safety cameras, automated license plate readers (ALPRs), to help local law enforcement investigate crimes by capturing still images of passing vehicles. While the Evansville Police Department says the cameras are used as a tool to support investigations, some residents argue the cameras have more capabilities than what the public has been led to believe and raise concerns about privacy.

Flock Safety cameras are automated license plate reader systems made and operated by Flock Safety, a company that markets them to local and state law enforcement agencies, homeowners’ associations, businesses and city governments.

The cameras capture still images of vehicles and their license plates as they pass. Evansville Police Chief Philip Smith said the cameras do not take video or provide officers with personal information about the driver or owner of the vehicle simply because a car passes a camera.

“When a vehicle passes our cameras, no personal information is shared, unless it’s a vehicle of interest,” Smith said.

If police are searching for a specific vehicle connected to an investigation, information about that vehicle can be entered into the system. Officers can then receive an alert when the vehicle passes one of the cameras.

Evansville has used the Flock system since 2022. Smith said the technology has helped the department investigate crimes ranging from auto theft and fraud to locating missing people. According to Smith, auto thefts have decreased 40% and fraud has decreased 20% since the cameras have been in use.

He also pointed to one of the department’s early uses of Flock to help locate a missing child. In July 2022, Willie Henderson Jr. kidnapped a 7-year-old boy. After the boy’s mother notified police, officers used Flock to help locate the suspect and safely return the child to his mother.

While city officials believe Flock has been a benefit to law enforcement, some residents are concerned about privacy and how information collected through the system can be used and shared.

DeFlock Evansville is a local advocacy group that raises awareness about the city’s growing network of ALPRs. Members have recently spoken out against Flock at various local meetings, including Evansville City Council.

Those concerns are also part of a larger national debate over ALPR technology. The American Civil Liberties Union has organized nationally around the expansion of Flock and other ALPR systems and has encouraged communities to question how the technology is used, regulated and shared. The ACLU of Indiana launched its “Get Flock Out of Indiana” campaign this summer, providing Hoosiers with information and tools to advocate for restrictions on or removal of ALPR systems in their communities.

According to DeFlock Evansville, one concern is the cameras’ ability to create what the group describes as “pattern of life tracking.” Pattern of life tracking refers to using collected information over time to identify frequent routes, daily habits, anomalies or deviations from routine.

The city, however, states that Flock cameras collect photos of vehicles and license plates and do not take video or track individuals and their daily routines.

Another concern raised about the cameras is the sharing of data across jurisdictions. Evansville, along with many cities across the country, has opted into cross-jurisdictional information sharing. This means that if a vehicle of interest from Evansville travels into another city or county participating in the same sharing system, Evansville police could receive an alert that the vehicle passed a camera in that jurisdiction.

“If we have a vehicle from Evansville and it travels somewhere outside our jurisdiction to a destination that has a Flock system that has also opted into the reciprocal sharing, it would alert us that the vehicle we’re searching for has been located,” Smith said.

Members of DeFlock and other privacy advocates have also raised Fourth Amendment concerns about ALPR systems. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects people from unreasonable government searches and seizures and generally establishes requirements for warrants based on probable cause.

“There are all sorts of arguments to be made here, but the first biggest one is generalised 4th Amendment breaches,” DeFlock Evansville member Adam Carey said. “There’s no warrant process to be made to be utilising and accessing the information being recorded by these AI ALPRs.”

Whether the widespread collection and searching of ALPR data violates the Fourth Amendment continues to be debated nationally.

That debate is also leading to changes within Flock Safety.

In August, Flock announced additional privacy and accountability safeguards for its technology, including changing its recommended default retention period for ALPR data from 30 days to seven days. Flock said more than 90% of searches that do not begin with a complete license plate occur within a week.

The company is also introducing “Evidence Mode,” which will allow investigators to preserve specific ALPR information for longer when it is evidence in an active investigation.

Existing customers will not automatically move to the seven-day retention period. Evansville currently retains its Flock data for 30 days, meaning the city would have to decide whether to adopt the company’s new recommendation.

Flock also announced new controls over cross-jurisdictional sharing. Agencies will be able to determine which types of offenses outside agencies may search their cameras for. For example, a community could permit searches involving stolen vehicles, missing people or violent crimes while restricting searches for other purposes.

Additional changes are aimed at preventing misuse of the system. By the end of the year, Flock says it will require law enforcement users to provide case codes when conducting searches and will require agencies to use its Audit Assistance system, which is designed to identify abnormal activity. The company also plans to automatically suspend access when a user’s activity meets certain criteria for abnormal behavior until that activity can be reviewed.

The changes address some of the same areas that have drawn concern from privacy advocates nationally, including how long ALPR information is retained, who can search it, how information is shared and what safeguards exist to identify misuse.

Evansville’s contract with Flock Safety is set to expire in November 2026. Evansville Mayor Stephanie Terry said the city plans to evaluate the system before deciding whether and how to move forward.

“With any agreement or contract that we have with the vendor, when that time comes to renegotiate those contracts, we’re going to do a full assessment of the pros and cons of moving forward with the current scope of service that is being offered,” Terry said.

The Mayor’s Office also said it is pushing for a public Flock transparency portal on the Evansville Police Department’s website, which would allow residents to see information about how the system is being used.

Flock’s newly announced safeguards add another consideration as that review approaches. Evansville officials will have to decide whether to maintain the city’s current 30-day retention period or adopt Flock’s seven-day recommendation, as well as how some of the company’s other new privacy and accountability measures will be implemented locally.

Those decisions will help determine what Evansville’s use of Flock looks like moving forward as city officials weigh the technology’s use as a law enforcement tool against continuing community concerns about privacy, transparency and oversight.