Mark Allen has been mayor of Washington Terrace since 2000. In his 26 years, Flock cameras have been one of the most controversial topics the 9,000-resident city has discussed, right up there with backyard chickens.
“Flocks have just blown up, you know, and everybody's, seems like everybody's against Flock,” he said in an interview.
Unlike chickens, Flock cameras are off the table, at least for now. The city council voted unanimously to cancel the camera trial before it even began.
That doesn’t mean the city is Flock-free. The Weber County Sheriff’s Office operates three cameras within city limits. They were installed in 2022.
About a dozen people attended and five spoke during the council meeting. Residents called for the council to cancel the Flock trial and not use AI surveillance technology in the future.
At the meeting, Republican state Rep. Jill Koford, who represents part of Washington Terrace, said legislators are working on data privacy. She called on residents to tell their lawmakers what they’d like to see.
“This is a tricky subject, but we need really good guardrails to ensure that we're maintaining those Fourth Amendment rights of the people of our communities and that we're protecting their privacy,” she said.
The council vote was a U-turn from where Washington Terrace was headed in March, when it approved a three Flock camera test trial at $3,000 per camera per year. Back then, one resident spoke against Flock, but there was little buzz, Allen said.
But when the city started talking this summer about getting the trial up and running, the reaction was much stronger.
“All of a sudden, we get more people at the Flock camera discussion than we did at the tax increase discussion,” Allen said.
Mayor Allen considers himself pro-Flock. Police in Ogden have called the technology a game-changer. License plate cameras helped police track down the suspect of a triple homicide in Wayne County in March. But after hearing privacy concerns from residents and Gov. Spencer Cox, he advised the council to pump the brakes.
“Pretty cool stories, right? But in the meantime, maybe you have, you know, the crazy police officer tracking his girlfriend too,” Allen said. “So, and we can't have that.”
At least 50 law enforcement officers around the country have been charged with or accused of using automatic license plate readers like Flock cameras for unauthorized reasons, according to the Washington Post. In about half of those cases, officers are accused of tracking women they’re interested in, partners, exes and exes’ new partners.
At his August news conference, Gov. Cox said he’d asked the state’s privacy board and commission to look into Utah’s rules on these cameras.
“Especially how they're being used with local agencies, to make sure that they are not being abused, to make sure that the public understands how and when they can be used, and if there are abuses taking place, that people are held accountable,” Cox said.
Hearing that from the governor was a turning point for Allen.
“I, you know, talked to staff and I just said, ‘I don't think we ought to go forward with it,” he said.
He wants more information on how the cameras are used and to see if Flock addresses concerns. If he’s satisfied with changes, he could recommend the city use Flock in the future. There has been movement on that front recently. In August, Flock announced policy changes to address privacy concerns, getting mixed reviews from the American Civil Liberties Union.
“Sounds like they do need to tighten up some things, have to kind of clean some things up, you know, and so then we'll all maybe be happy in six months to a year,” Allen said.
But Casey Sanders, the sole resident who spoke up back in March, wants the decision to be a done deal.
“I'm glad they ended it,” he said. “I think they did the right thing, and I hope that we don't have to be back here again.”
Cities from Tempe, Arizona, to Asheville, North Carolina, have recently backed away from Flock cameras. Salt Lake City is considering tighter restrictions on its similar Motorola-made Vigilant cameras.
In Box Elder County, the Tremonton Garland Police Department recently tested Motorola’s license plate readers and decided not to use them.
“After reviewing the results of the pilot program, we did not find sufficient benefit to justify the potential cost, or the privacy concerns associated with continued use of the technology,” the department said in a statement.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
