The St. Charles County Police Department is discontinuing its use of Flock Safety license plate readers after it said a former civilian employee abused system data.
The department made the announcement Thursday, saying it discovered "an abnormal pattern of searches" from the former worker. Police Chief Kurt Frisz was made aware of the searches two days after Flock representatives told him about an audit tool that allows law enforcement to check the system's usage and automatically scan questionable patterns. The audit reviewed material beginning Jan. 1.
"This employee's egregious misuse of the data system may be limited to a personal matter, but I am committed to ensuring that every use of the tools law enforcement have are audited, from my own access to the newest recruit," Frisz said in a statement. "And then we ensure we audit the auditors."
Police did not provide the former worker's name, saying it's a personnel matter. The department said that the Flock audit didn't provide easy access to a complete history of searches and that Frisz ordered an internal investigation of the individual and suspended their credentials. The department said the individual admitted to using the data inappropriately and for personal, non-law enforcement reasons.
The former worker was put on unpaid leave and resigned after they were given a notice of termination. An outside police agency is conducting the investigation. The department said it didn't find other unauthorized usage patterns during the audit timeframe.
The department said access to historical Flock data has been restricted to a limited number of key supervisors and Regional Intelligence and Information Center officers. Those searches will be regularly audited to ensure inappropriate conduct isn't happening.
"This is a good example of a high degree of accountability," Frisz said. "We detected it, we took action on it, and and we're letting the public know that 'Hey, we found an issue, we fixed it, and we're making some changes to ensure it doesn't happen again.'"
Frisz said the department alerted Flock that it's discontinued service. He said that the cameras have since been covered with black bags, and that the company will eventually retrieve its equipment. There are 28 Flock cameras across the county, 20 within county parks and eight across various streets.
Flock cameras have been used by police departments across the country to scan cars and license plates. The company has more than 120,000 cameras across the U.S. Police departments have said the cameras are used to solve crimes, but they've sparked fierce debate over privacy concerns, who has access to the data and how the cameras collect license plate information of people who haven't been charged with a crime. Immigration rights advocates have also criticized the cameras following concerns that the data could be used to target immigrants. The Pulaski County Sheriff's Department also announced it would also stop using Flock cameras this week.
Frisz said while the county will no longer use Flock, it is still using license plate readers from another vendor that he said are better quality and offer more checks and balances.
"We make 30 to 50 felony arrests a year, on average, through the license plate reader," Frisz said. "We've caught people wanted for homicide running around our county, and within 24 hours, got them in custody because of the license plate reader."
Watchdog group DeFlock has found more than 1,000 license plate reader cameras across the St. Louis area.
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