Dayton is in the final stages of hiring an outside law firm to investigate the misuse of the city’s Flock license-plate cameras, News Center 7 reported on Nov. 12. The move is the city’s latest step in a controversy that has kept Dayton’s 72 fixed-site Flock cameras covered and its program suspended while officials decide what happens next, according to WHIO and earlier reporting by the Dayton Daily News and the Springfield News-Sun.
The program unraveled earlier this year. Dayton suspended use of its Flock cameras — automatic license-plate readers whose data can be accessed by departments across the country — after the city found its data was being scanned for immigration reasons in violation of city policy, according to the Springfield News-Sun. A policy violation in the city’s Flock system resulted in more than 7,000 searches related to immigration enforcement made by outside agencies, the News-Sun reported, and Dayton workers placed bags over the city’s cameras after the suspension.
City leaders discussed covering the cameras at their May 20 commission meeting as the city weighed the program’s future during the suspension, and Dayton city commissioners have called for the removal of the cameras, according to the Springfield News-Sun. The city’s own information guide on license-plate readers laid out the next steps: hiring an independent company to conduct a full audit, hosting engagement sessions and collecting survey data, the News-Sun reported.
“Once the audit is complete, the City will publish findings and recommendations,” the city’s ALPR FAQ states, as quoted by the Springfield News-Sun. “The City Commission will make final decision on ALPR camera use.” The outside law firm now being hired, as News Center 7 reported Nov. 12, is the investigative piece of that process — an independent look at how the misuse happened rather than an internal review by the same offices that ran the program.
The debate around the cameras has not softened. Privacy advocates describe plate readers as a powerful mass-surveillance tool with grave potential for misuse because the information they collect can be accessed with little accountability, while police officials say the cameras provide valuable evidence in criminal investigations that could otherwise go unsolved, according to the Springfield News-Sun. Dayton’s experience — thousands of outside searches the city’s own policy barred — has become the local test case for both arguments.
Dayton is not deciding in a vacuum. Toledo’s council deadlocked 6-6 this week on its own Flock camera question, leaving that city’s program hanging on its mayor’s vote, and Columbus and Lebanon have also paused programs while audits and limits are debated across Ohio. What Dayton’s investigators find — and what the commission does with the findings — will be watched well beyond Montgomery County.
Next, the city is expected to finalize the law firm’s hiring and let the investigation run. Under the city’s stated plan, the audit findings and recommendations will be published when complete, and the Dayton City Commission will then make the final decision on whether the cameras come back, change, or come down for good.
Photo: Blervis, CC BY