Three ACLU Recommendations for City Council and State Laws

If the police or government leaders are pushing for Flock or another centralized mass-surveillance ALPR system in your community, we urge you to oppose it, full stop. You can do this by urging your local councilperson or other elected representatives to adopt our recommendations into law, attending public meetings and hearings, and raising the profile of the issue by writing letters to the editor and op-eds.

1. Data Retention

(Adopted from New Hampshire state law): Add by law or as an addendum to Flock contract: “Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary, ALPR photos or data captured by the customer’s Flock camera, or otherwise provided to or shared with Flock by the customer, or any data generated therefrom, shall be deleted and destroyed by Flock no more than three minutes after such photos or data are first captured by, provided to, or shared with Flock, unless otherwise required by applicable law.”

2. Data Sharing / Use by Others

Add by law or as an addendum to Flock contract: “Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary, ALPR photos or data captured by the customer’s Flock camera, or otherwise sent to or shared with Flock by the customer, or data produced therefrom, shall not be sent to, shared with, or used by or for any other person or entity.”

3. Database Use

(In addition to adding data sharing limitations above): Add by law or as an addendum to Flock contract: “Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary, ALPR photos or data captured by the customer’s Flock camera, or otherwise sent to or shared with Flock by the customer, or data produced therefrom, may be compared only to hot lists created by the government Agency that provided the ALPR photo or data.”