York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Office now using ‘Flock Transparency Portal’ to increase transparency around Flock camera usage
YORK COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) — The York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Office is looking to increase transparency regarding its use of Flock cameras.
They plan to do this through the new “Herd Transparency Portal”.” It’s a website that the sheriff’s office hopes will provide residents with insight into how technology is used.
York-Poquoson Sheriff Ron Montgomery explained that Flock, himself, sets up the portal and each law enforcement agency decides whether they want to use it or not.
Other locations such as Newport News, Norfolk and Suffolk also use this website.
“I have had several opportunities to talk to my community and the people who live here about Flock and to dispel some of the rumors and misinformation about him,” Montgomery said. “So I thought it was the next logical step to go ahead and use this portal.”
The controversial eye from the sky has sparked many conversations in Hampton Roads, and even some lawsuits.
More recently, A case has been heard before a federal judge challenging Norfolk police’s use of Flock security license plate readers. Those opposed to the cameras argued it was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, saying cameras capturing vehicles constituted a warrantless search.
Montgomery said the cameras are an extremely useful tool for law enforcement in fighting crime.
“Essentially, these cameras are motion activated, and as cars pass by, they take a picture of the car and the license plate,” Montgomery said. “There is no vehicle registration information. There is nothing other than the photo of the car and the license plate and the date, time and location where the photo was taken,” Montgomery said.
He added that according to Virginia law, they can store this information for 21 days and if they have no legitimate use for it, it will disappear.
He said investigators use the data to help identify vehicles linked to crimes. They also generate real-time alerts when a license plate matches a hotlist.
Montgomery said York County and Poquoson City residents can get basic information about how the cameras work, what they are used for, how they have been used recently and read success stories, all through the transparency portal.
According to the York County and City of Poquoson website, there are 40 license plate readers and other cameras, and more than 380,000 vehicles have been detected in the past 30 days. And his recent success story showed how license plate reader technology helped track down a stolen vehicle in December, which then led to an arrest.
“The more the public is aware of what they are actually capable of doing and how law enforcement uses them,” Montgomery said, “the more comfortable they feel and understand exactly how valuable they are.”
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