MORGANTOWN – During a presentation Friday to members of the press, representatives from the Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department said the department has nothing to hide when it comes to the implementation of Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras in the county.
As evidence, the department presented a new “Flock Safety Transparency” link currently live at monongaliasheriff.gov, aimed at providing information about how the technology is used as well as data showing the number of unique vehicles detected, the number of hits detected by cameras, the number of searches conducted by the department and a link to download internal search audits conducted by the department’s system administrators.
“Everything we have is right here,” Sheriff Todd Forbes said. “There’s not going to be any reason for anybody to send us a FOIA because it’s already on there. We’re going to say, ‘Go to the webpage.’ It’s all there.”
Friday’s informational session included a presentation by MCSD Law Enforcement Administrator Mark Ralston, which the department asked the press not to film or record, followed by a question and answer period.
Ralston explained the only information collected by the cameras is the license plate text, vehicle attributes, the date and time the vehicle was photographed and the camera’s location.
“Plates and vehicles. We don’t get ownership information. It doesn’t take pictures of drivers. It can’t tell any of that. We don’t get names and addresses, phone numbers, driver ID or any kind of information on race,” he said, showing examples of images captured by the cameras.
The images and information captured by the county’s cameras are owned by the county, but held by Flock for 21 days. That number was recently reduced from 30 days based on a pending court ruling out of Virginia.
Ralston said Flock has no contracts with any federal agencies and does not resell data.
Asked how the county knows Flock is eliminating the images after 21 days and not sharing or selling them, Ralston explained, “It’s part of the contract.”
“If you have a Google Drive, you own the content, but Google stores it for you. Same difference,” he said.
Ralston explained that Flock Safety was certified as CJIS, or Criminal Justice Information System, compliant by the federal government in order to gain access to the National Crime Information Center. That certification, he added, comes with information security guarantees that can be audited.
Likewise, use of the system by trained MCSD and MECCA personnel will be audited every 90 days. Every entry into the system creates a permanent trail that includes who is accessing the data and what data is being accessed.
Additionally, Ralston said the system utilized by the MCSD will not conduct a search unless an active case number is part of the search information.
As implemented, according to Ralston, the system alerts MECCA and law enforcement of plates passing cameras that have been entered into NCIC, are tagged as part of missing persons alerts or have been entered on a hotlist of active investigations by the department.
Once a hit occurs, the plate is verified during the follow-up conducted by a road deputy before any further action is taken.
“We don’t make arrests just because this thing tells us, period,” he said. “It all has to be verified.”
As Forbes did recently during a recent meeting of the Monongalia County Commission, Ralston explained the information being collected by the ALPR cameras is insignificant compared to what’s already being collected and publicly shared.
Forbes used cellphones as an example.
Ralston entered his own name into a paid “people search” website, and scrolled through a 75-page report that included detailed information ranging from old and current phone numbers and addresses, to banking information, vehicle purchases, and his known and suspected family members, including their addresses and phone numbers.
“You don’t have to be law enforcement to get this. You think these LPRs are crazy? This is crazy,” he said.
In November, the Monongalia County Commission Commission approved the use of up to $180,000 in directly allocated opioid settlement funds over three years to place 20 Flock cameras at locations across the county.
In addition to representatives from the MCSD, Friday’s session was attended by commissioners Sean Sikora and Tom Bloom, state Sen. Chris Rose (R-Monongalia 02), and state Senate candidate Toby Heaney.
