While there are not currently any Flock cameras within the city limits of Perryville, Perry County Sheriff Jason Klaus confirmed the presence of three in the county, including one mobile unit that can travel to and cover different areas.
“The Perry County Sheriff’s Office does subscribe to Flock and we have three cameras,” Klaus said. “One of them is actually located on Interstate 55 in Cape County recording traffic that is going northbound on I-55 that is traveling into Perry County. We also have a camera on highway 51 near the Chester Bridge coming into Perryville, and then we have a mobile unit that we use to deploy in what we’ll call hotspot areas. If we have several reported crimes, we will deploy that mobile unit to try to capture suspect information.”
Flock cameras can read license plates, identify unique features of cars to better identify them, and link data across a network of other cameras, giving them the ability to track a vehicle and record its travel history.
These abilities, especially the networking ability, have caused a lot of concern, with civilians accusing law enforcement of misusing them to track innocent people. These concerns have led to considerable backlash, and vandalism of cameras throughout the country.
Critics of the cameras say that they are being used to create a surveillance state, violating privacy and giving law enforcement too much power. Klaus addressed these concerns.
“There’s training that our officers go through on appropriate uses of the system,” Klaus said. “There’s also [Memorandum of Understanding] that we have set up with other government entities, such as Missouri State Highway Patrol and their criminal justice information system that if any of those things become misused, that officer could definitely face consequences. In order to do a search, you have to put certain parameters in and all of those things are logged into the system and we audit that, so I can tell every single search that one of my officers put in and make sure that it is for legitimate purposes.”
Further controversy stems from the fact that Flock cameras use artificial intelligence to record and analyze data. The sheriff added that there are safeguards in place within the cameras themselves. It is not capturing data that we don’t know a name, all we see is a license plate and a vehicle description,” Klaus said. “On the other side of that, the information is only stored for 30 days. We can only go back to a 30 day search. And we have to have a specific intent to search a car.”
According to Klaus the contract with Flock began in 2021, before he became Sheriff. He said he believes they have allowed the sheriff’s office to run more efficiently.
“I look at it as a force multiplier,” he said. “We could sit roadside and run and check every single vehicle license plate that goes by us, with deputies sitting there using a car and fuel, where this system works for us. I think it makes sense, it makes financial sense.”
Many municipalities, including some in Missouri, have recently terminated contracts with Flock, or have blocked them from coming to their communities because of the uncertainty surrounding the privacy and oversight concerns.
Perryville city administrator Brent Buerck said there aren’t any current plans to install Flock cameras within the city limits, and that the idea would first have to come from the police chief, who has not as of yet deemed them necessary.
“It’s nothing we’re actively discussing,” Buerck said. “Similar to the Sheriff’s Department we have an elected police chief and he runs the police department, through the budget process he asks the city for resources and we do the best we can to meet those needs. But so far, it’s not been discussed.”
