Saline City Council Discusses Potential Traffic Cameras

The potential installation of a Flock camera was discussed at Saline City Council’s Nov. 10 meeting. Flock Safety is a security company focusing primarily on legal and private surveillance. The cameras being discussed by city council would include an AI-powered vehicle identification system that reads license plates and other distinguishing features of a car.

“I do know that this is a hot topic, so for full transparency, I just wanted everybody’s input and kind of your ideas whether or not this is something that we want or not,” Saline Chief of Police Marlene Radzik said at the meeting. “So you know, to start off: why? Why were we looking at Flock cameras? There are neighboring jurisdictions, jurisdictions who have and are utilizing Flock cameras now at this time. And you know, we have had some different incidents that have occurred here in the city of Saline that having a slot camera would have been very beneficial.”

According to Chief Radzik, the cameras do not pick up biometric data or use facial recognition. They are meant to be used to read and identify license plates only, which could help in possible missing persons cases or if a vehicle is stolen.

“That’s why they call the license plate reader,” she said. “We’re also not writing tickets off of this because we don’t see the occupant of the vehicle.”

However, the camera does still record the area around the vehicle. Concerns were raised by multiple council members about privacy and possible abuse of personal information that the camera might incidentally record. 

“That’s the piece that I’m trying to understand,” council member Nicole Rice said. “It shows peripheral, what’s happening on that sidewalk around that building, things like that. So you really are expanding beyond the vehicle in the back of a vehicle, and so you’re capturing a lot of data.”

As part of protecting local residents and visitors’ privacy, Radzik stated that the data is purged every 30 days with few exceptions, which are outlined in the draft policy for the police department’s use of the cameras.

“ALPR data should be purged unless it has become, or it is reasonable to believe it will become, evidence in a criminal or civil action or is subject to a discovery request or other lawful action to produce records,” the draft reads. “In such circumstances, the applicable data should be downloaded onto portable media, logged as evidence, and stored in the property room.”

A decision regarding installation has not yet been made.