Lockport will take down every Flock Safety unit in the city, scrap installations already on the schedule and bar any new one from going up, the Common Council decided Wednesday night, News10NBC reported.
Privacy drove the vote rather than any complaint about how the system performed, News10NBC reported. Other New York municipalities have ended contracts this fall; Lockport goes a step further by closing off a new contract entirely.
Why a ban, not a pause
A cancellation can be undone by the next administration. A written prohibition cannot, because restarting the programme would mean overturning a standing ordinance in public session.
Each unit photographs the rear of a passing car, capturing the plate characters together with make, model, paint colour and identifying marks such as decals and dents. Police departments then search that archive when they need to find a vehicle tied to a crime.
Nationally the vendor’s data has drawn steady scrutiny. At least 50 officers have been accused or charged with misusing plate reader searches, most of them Flock users, according to a Washington Post investigation. Municipalities have also debated how long readings stay in shared databases and which outside agencies can reach them.
The regional picture
Rochester-area departments that kept their cameras say results justify the tradeoff. Greece police tie plate readers to a significant decline in vehicle thefts, and the Monroe County Legislature approved an installation of its own last year.
Cornell University let its campus agreement lapse this month, while Ithaca, Trumansburg and Cayuga Heights have already stepped away, leaving upstate New York with an uneven map of who still runs the technology.
