ST. PETERSBURG, FL — A new grassroots group is calling on the St. Petersburg Police Department to end its use of Flock Safety license plate-reading cameras, arguing that the technology raises privacy and civil liberties concerns and was adopted without enough public discussion.
DeFlock St. Pete will hold its first major public meeting Saturday as organizers look to build a broader coalition around the issue, organizer Zach Schira told Patch.
The meeting is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Saturday at the Barack Obama Library.
The group began forming in April, largely through members of the St. Petersburg chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, Schira said.
Organizers have since been working behind the scenes on public records requests, research and outreach. Now, they're ready to bring the effort to the broader community.
"We're really just trying to get people engaged right now," Schira said.
The Saturday meeting is intended as an introduction to Flock's technology, an overview of how St. Petersburg uses it and a discussion about what residents can do if they oppose the system, he said.
The group hopes to attract people who are already concerned about surveillance technology as well as residents who have only recently begun hearing about Flock cameras.
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Schira's interest in the issue grew out of years of advocacy around digital privacy and security.
He became increasingly interested in Flock as automatic license plate readers, often known as ALPRs, began receiving more national attention.
Flock cameras can capture license plates and vehicle information and allow law enforcement agencies to search the resulting data. Supporters of the technology have pointed to its use in criminal investigations, while privacy advocates have raised concerns about how much information is collected and how it can be accessed.
Schira said he believes the issue provides an opportunity to bring more people into a broader conversation about surveillance and civil liberties.
"It felt like a way to get people interested in the broader problem of surveillance technology and infringements on our civil rights," he said.
DeFlock St. Pete is not formally affiliated with the national DeFlock movement or DeFlock.org, although local organizers were inspired by that work and have communicated with people involved with the national effort, Schira added.
The local group's immediate goal is straightforward: cancel St. Petersburg's contract with Flock and remove the cameras.
But Schira said organizers don't want the city to simply replace Flock with another company offering similar automatic license plate-reader technology.
He pointed to recent examples of cities ending Flock contracts only to enter agreements with other ALPR companies.
"All the other companies that do this, that do the automatic license plate readers, are more or less in the same boat," he said, adding that without stronger government oversight and regulation, the technology shouldn't be used.
One of the group's biggest concerns is what Schira described as a lack of meaningful safeguards governing access to Flock data. He compared the issue with law enforcement's use of cellphone location information, which generally requires a warrant.
"With Flock, there's just nothing like that," he said. "There's just really no guardrails to it. There's no oversight."
Schira said that creates the potential for both individual misuse and broader abuse of the system.
He also raised concerns about the use of Flock data in connection with federal immigration enforcement, saying reports of ways federal agencies have obtained access to ALPR information demonstrate the need for greater transparency.
Flock has said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) doesn't have direct access to its data, but Schira said he remains concerned about indirect avenues through which information can be obtained.
Another major issue for DeFlock St. Pete is how the city's Flock contract was approved.
Schira said the contract went before city council as part of the consent agenda, meaning it was approved along with other routine items without a public conversation.
"There was no discussion between city councilors. There was no public input," he said.
Organizers believe residents should have had an opportunity to discuss the implications of a citywide surveillance system before it was put into operation.
"We really feel like for a system like this that we are all being subjected to, to not have any kind of public process for that is just kind of unacceptable," Schira said.
The group has already begun talking with city council member Richie Floyd, whom Schira said has been receptive to the concerns and interested in potentially bringing the issue before the council.
Floyd is the only council member the group has spoken with directly so far, though organizers plan to reach out to the rest of the council following Saturday's meeting.
The group also hasn't yet directly contacted St. Petersburg police about its campaign, although organizers have submitted public records requests that have gone through the department.
DeFlock St. Pete's first public meeting comes as the use of automated license plate readers has become an increasingly visible issue nationally.
For Schira and the other organizers, however, Saturday's gathering is less about having all the answers than starting a public conversation.
"We're trying to start the conversation that should have happened before any of this went into place in the first place," he said.
Organizers hope the meeting will provide residents with an opportunity to learn how the cameras work and understand St. Petersburg's relationship with Flock,
"It's just the beginning," Schira said.
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