Flock camera discussion and sheriff's office presentation
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All right, thank you. Uh in light of this um constitutional question on the fourth amendment, I think it's worthy of having a quick conversation with the board. Uh frankly, I think we've got a ton of emails, not as many as data centers, but I think all of us have vis visited to go visit our flock camera operation with the Sheriff's Office. And I want to say this our Sheriff's Office team has done this very respectfully, very responsibly. But bottom line comes into this shared information, the fact of 90 days. I'm I'm
I'm uncomfortable with this going on for another day. I want to see how the board feels. If we want to write a letter to the sheriff asking to stop these things now, or what what what's the what's the pleasure of the board at this moment?
To stop what?
To stop these flock cameras from being used in this county.
No, I I I had a uh meeting with the Sheriff's Office yesterday and I'm confident that we are protecting our public's uh identity and They keep the data for thirty days. If you want, you can have Chase come up. Yeah, that's what I'm gonna say. Can Chase come up?
Let's have Ch Chase do a presentation. Chase, come on up, please.
Gina
Seth
up.
As everybody knows, Sunshine Law prevents us from talking with each other about any of these items coming before the board. So um but in a situation like this, I think it's important enough. And Chase, thank you for the work with all of us to show us what you guys are doing. And again, I've got full confidence you've done it right, other than some other counties that haven't. But what you've done has been great. And I think your people are well intentioned, so I have no negative feelings toward the operation. But the citizens' complaints is what concerns me the most. So we would go ahead and discuss it.
Yes, sir, absolutely. Chase Daniels, Under Sheriff Community Outreach Operations, Pasco Sheriff's Office. And uh thank thank you, Connor, for pulling up the uh the presentation. Um so this is a presentation that uh that that the members of the of the board have have seen. Um before I begin, I would like to just uh kind of respond to some of the public comment that that we heard today. Um to begin first, regarding Regarding the Fourth Amendment issue. So there was a ruling in January from the 4th Federal District that held that these cameras, as long as they are in public right-of-way, that there is no expectation
of privacy in those public right-of-way. So to begin, first I want to make it clear to the board and to the public that all of our cameras are put in public right-of-way. That is why we have the interlocal agreement. That is why we pull the permits. There are in fact more cameras in Pasco County that are owned by entities not the Sheriff's Office than the Sheriff's Office. We have approximately 60 cameras. There are approximately 170 in Pasco County. The other 110 are owned by commercial establishments, they're owned by gas stations, they're owned by
HOAs, CDDs. So just to be clear on that, not every camera that you see belongs to the Sheriff's Office. And then I would also Like to uh to address the public comment. Yeah, I I certainly understand the the concerns that were raised regarding what happens in other counties. Um and as you'll see, we we have policies and procedures in place that protect Pasco County from that happening. Um while I cannot speak to what may happen in Texas or what may happen in another county in Florida, we have had no violations. Uh in fact it it is a a state law violation to commit uh an act that that violates this, just as with any
of the other sensitive data. That we have available to us. And then finally, you're regress- uh addressing Mr. Cannon's concerns again before I get in the presentation. Um I had the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Cannon on Friday as well. I certainly appreciate his passion and his knowledge and his uh experience in this field. Um Yeah, we we are aware of that uh provision in the contract, and as this board will see, uh that is part of the data sharing agreement that helps us with other law enforcement agencies. Um so there's a success story that I'll talk about uh where a lot where a
young juvenile was found in South Carolina in in approximately 12 hours. That data allows us to share with other agencies.
Yes, ma'am. Uh we we we suspect that we're not gonna be a good To us possibly being human trafficked. Thank you very much. And so that allows us to share that information with other agencies instead of us having to pick up the phone and call every jurisdiction along the way where she was possibly going. It allows that information. And again, that is all governed by our policies. State law allows us to maintain the data for up to two years. A county to our south, again, I don't want to speak to other counties' policies and procedures, but County to the south of us uh maintains the data for 180 days, we maintain
the data for thirty days, and then it is purged from the system. So to address Mr. Cannon's concerns regarding imperpetuity and things like that, our data is purged for thirty days. What
that let me let me stop you for a second. Yes sir. So you say it's purged from our system, what he's talking about is Flock has the data, they're not purging the system, they're keeping the data and they're selling the data.
That's part of our contract. They they follow our policies. So whenever we say it's purged for 30 days, so the in perpetuity, so for instance, if we switch vendors, which we are in the process of doing, uh what what happens with that in perpetuity at the end after the end of the contract that Mr. Cannon is referring to? Is for the duration of that 30 days. So if we do a license plate read on the last day of our contract, that data will be held for 30 days by Flock that allows us to search that for 30 days, even though our contract has ended with Flock. But it is not maintained by
Flock after the 30 days. Every agency has different standards and procedures. And like I said, the minimum in Florida is two years and it's purged by Flock. We purge ours.
And also Chase, can can you just inform the public how many years we've been using these and also, you know, if you go to Lowe's, you go to Home Depot, pr um I mean uh everywhere that these these cameras are privately owned by other by other people, which you stated, but it really I most of them are owned by other people.
Y yes ma'am and and then I'll get into the to the presentation if if it pleases the board. Um but but yes ma'am uh so there are approximately a hundred and ten cameras in the county not owned by the Sheriff's Office. As I said we we own approximately sixty. Um so we have had these in the public right away since the Uh, interlocal agreement was passed on, I believe it was December 10th, 2024. Um, prior to that, we did have access to two cameras whenever CDDs or HOAs voluntarily shared that information with us. Uh it's not something we reach out and ask for. Uh or if a if a Lowe's, for instance, had perhaps a robbery
or a burglary and they shared uh their flock data with us. We we did have access to it before then. Um where this really all began was was roughly twice. 2014 with a company named Vigilant, and it was used by tow companies. So they would use license plate readers on tow trucks to know perhaps a car that they needed to repo or something like that was driving along. So we did have access to that data again on a company willing to share the data with us, or a CDD or an HOA willing to share the data with us. For our purposes, we we've had these in the public right-of-way
since December 10th, 2024. interlocal agreement. Um and with that, Connor, uh uh if you don't mind flipping to the to the next one. Or the first slide I guess.
This is a presentation, please. Quiet. Thank you.
Uh so so first of all, I I think it'd be important to address what an automated license plate reader is. Uh and so what you'll see there on the right side uh is actually one of our sheriff's office vehicles. Uh for the purposes of this presentation, uh all the vehicles you're gonna see except for for one uh are sheriff's office vehicles. I do have a real life example, uh but we we blacked out the the pertinent information uh in that. Um but so what a what a license vehicle is. License plate reader is it is a still image of the vehicle. So it's a snapshot, it's a snapshot at a single point in time, and it's the same
view that any deputy or any citizen uh in the public right-of-way could could lawfully see. Um and as I mentioned earlier, they're installed uh with permission, they're placed in the public right-of-way uh either under permit through the Florida Department of Transportation if it's a state road, or with our agreement with with Pasco County if it is a county road. Um, so the one thing I do want to point out in the in the actual capture, um, as as you will see, uh it is a very narrowly tailored picture. Um so you know, for instance, you know, there appears to be a car traveling the other way, um,
but with the positioning of the camera, we are not able to capture any details on that camera. And also there are no details about who is driving that car. So, for instance, you cannot see into the passenger seat or the driver's seat, but in said it it largely captures the back of that vehicle and uh and its license plate. Um next slide please.
So, this is what a search looks like. Um, and again, so this is specific to Pasco County. Uh I just want to be clear that I cannot speak to other counties or other states. Um, but this is what a search looks like for the Pasco Sheriff's Office. Uh so we search by a plate, and so what that requires is first first of all, not every deputy or every member of the Pasco Sheriff's Office has access to our license plate reader. We require them to go through a training and then an annual refraction. Pressure training, and their access is reviewed based on their position. So if someone who is uh certified transfers
to another position, we review that new position to see if they still need access, and if they don't, we restrict the access. Um at this point we have approximately 400 people, uh largely uh detectives, and some of our patrol that has access to this out of our 1300 members. Um And then whenever you do search, like I said, it is a a read, not a not a recorded video feed. So each result is a still image, and that comes with the camera location and the timestamp. We then also require that the that it be tied to a case and logged. So what that
means is every time someone runs a license plate reader scan, it is required to be tied to either a case number or an active call number. We know who made the search and they are also required to type in a robust narrative regarding why they are doing the search. Our policies do not allow it just to say something like search or bolo. Instead, it requires a witness told me that the suspect left this location driving a vehicle with license plate ABC One Two Three. We we require that level of detail and and that again protects the public but
also helps with our investigations because. Certainly, the court process can take a lengthy time sometimes. And so the last thing that we would want is one of our deputies to be on a stand in a criminal case and five years later be asked why they ran a scan, and all they had to go off of was Bolo. Instead, we we want that robust narrative to again provide the public accountability and transparency on why that search was run in the first place, but then also to make sure that we are helping. Those criminal prosecutions so that those details are remembered and refreshed by the deputy. And
then, as I as I mentioned earlier, um our LPR cameras are set to like keep 30 days of rec of records. That window is is short by our design. Like I said, state law gives us up to two years. Um some counties uh in in this area keep it for 180 days. We we choose by by choice to keep it for for 30 days. Um next slide, please. And again, uh I'll fly through this because this is something we talked about earlier, but this is what they what the actual uh what they actually capture. So again, as you can see in these two pictures, very narrow views on on the camera. Uh there appears to be a
a car there in that far right lane ahead of the the vehicle. Um but as you can see we we don't see any any details on that. Um next slide, please. And so then I I do think it's important to also make sure that that the board and the public understand what like License plate reader cameras do not do. So there is no facial recognition. It cannot identify a person by their face, and there is no ability to search for images of people. There is no audio. I know that is something that we've heard. There are some cameras that do collect
audio. So it's something that you guys may have heard called ShotSpotter, for instance. Like the Jacksonville Police Department, I believe the Tampa Police Department have. Shot spotter, what that does is it listens for sounds of gunshots and then it can trigger law enforcement. They just picked up a sound of gunshots. That is not something we have. We have no intention to have that. So our cameras record no audio. And they also record no video. As I mentioned, they're still shot in a in a point of time. So they actually offer uh in some instances less information than uh than a standard DOT traffic camera. Um
they also have Have no biometric or ID data. It collects vehicle data only. It's a completely separate database to see who runs or who a vehicle is registered to. That's maintained by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. These LPR cameras do not tie into that. All we know is this license plate went through this intersection at this time. Again, no tracking of people. So they cannot tell one person from another. And as I showed in the in those sample uh shots, uh
they do not even see people at all because they are not showing anyone who's even driving the vehicle. And then uh to Commissioner Mariano's concern, again, just uh just reiterate, uh no data sold or shared outside of law enforcement, and that is also pursuant to Florida law. Um so again, the the clause in in the contract that talks about sharing in perpetuity and all that also Has a clause that talks about it being governed by applicable law. We've confirmed with with Flock that that is the applicable law is the Florida State Statute that limits this to law enforcement use only, no commercial
use. Next slide, please.
But again, 30 days. Everything has to have an authorized purpose, which is tied to a case number or a call number. We have restricted and trained access, so only those approved trained users can access the system. Every search is logged with that valid reason. We own the data, and then we also conduct an audit of our searches to make sure that there is nothing out of the ordinary. For instance, uh we even go so far if a detective is traditionally assigned to an eight to five shift and they are doing license plate read at two AM We know that we have a conversation with detective saying, hey, why are
you running a search at 2 a.m.? What has happened every time so far? That detective has been able to show us, and it's been confirmed by their by their timesheets, by their supervisors, by the people on scene, that they were called out. Uh maybe on an investigation, they were working during the rate to five shift and there was a development, so they got called out because we we are a 24-7 agency. Um, but so we even go so far as to look for searches that are outside of of someone's normal normal time limit. But to date, you again I'm aware of concerns and violations that may have occurred in other agencies, but we have had no violations in the
Pasco Sheriff's Office. Next slide, please. And then as I mentioned, these are also governed by Florida law. So the two Florida statutes that govern these are 316.00 or 0777 and 778. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has also. publish statewide guidelines. Again, that that limits uh you know whenever it comes down to that provision that that Mr. Cannon spoke about, the applicable law uh limits this to law enforcement purpose only, no commercial use. Um again, vehicle data, not identities. Again, it is it is the
license plate, uh confidential and case limited. I think this is something that's important to address because I I do know um you know one one of the commissioners had a question whenever we were doing uh the demonstrations for for you all regarding public records. So Florida State statute exempts these searches from from public record. So if some company or or entity was interested in the data wanted to do a public record search for all of our license plate scans, they would not be able to to obtain that information. Again it's confidential exempt under Florida statute 119. The only
exemption to that is for a vehicle that you You can prove you're the registered owner of. So if you are ever uh concerned about um you know why your vehicle may have been run or if your vehicle had been run by the Pasco Sheriff's Office, if you can prove you're the registered owner of the vehicle, uh Florida law does give an exemption that that your vehicle becomes public record only to you. Uh and again, we we think that's uh another example of accountability and transparency uh put in place by the Florida legislature so that they can so that someone can make sure. That their license plate is not being run inappropriately.
And then I know there will be a discussion later today regarding school zone speed cameras. But so just so uh that the board is aware, so these cameras are different than those cameras. Uh these cameras uh do not issue any citation, it's an investigative tool, uh, and in flat floor, in fact, Florida law does not allow us to to use. use these cameras for enforcement action, which is why there's a separate statute dealing with school zone speed cameras, which I believe you'll you'll be discussing later today. Next slide, please. And then I I do want to
address the again.
But before you get up to the next topic, can you give them an example of the severity of cases when you use these plate readers?
Yeah yes ma'am, absolutely. I
if
I can get through this real quick then I'll get to success stories if that if that's okay with you.
Just so they know like it's it's just for the harshest of crimes.
Yes ma'am. Thank you very much. Um so so we do have uh there there are three vendors. Uh unfortunately the these vendors do do not communicate. Um so that that is why you you will see that we have uh you know agreements with with Flock Safety, Axon and Motorola. Uh again that that is so So these are entities that all of the different counties around us use, some of the businesses around us use. So we do have agreements just to have a full view of what type of data we we have access to. Next slide. Uh
neck next slide we've talked about that. This is just the the interlocal agreements and the right-of-way. So to to Commissioner Yeager's point, I'd like to talk about a few examples. Um and so to be clear uh for for the board, uh so our policy, and again this is this is specific to the Pasco Sheriff's Office, I cannot speak to to other counties. Um
So uh so I I would certainly like to like to point out that uh that our our policy, again specific to Pasco, um we only allow these searches to be for any felony offense, any offense involving the use, attempted use, or threatened use of violence against a person without regard to the degree of the offense, any act of domestic violence, stalking or cyberstalking, violation of an injunction for protection, a no-contact order, or court order condition of pretrial release or community supervision, any sexual offense, any offense in which a child is the victim, including
luring or enticing a child, leaving the scene of a crash, driving under the influence. But again, to to that point, uh we cannot use the camera read as proof of that. So that that basically comes in if someone calls in to F H P or us and says, hey I I there's a car swerving all over the road, this is her license plate. That is so a deputy can help locate that vehicle, but then the deputy still has to witness the offense. So if the deputy finds a vehicle and the vehicle is driving at a normal speed, not acting impaired, there is no traffic stop based on on the data
alone. Um unlawful discharge of a firearm and improper exhibition uh of a firearm or other dangerous weapon, cruelty to animals, theft. Trespass uh and any attempt solicitation or conspiracy to commit an offense listed in this section. Um and I do want to speak specifically to to the trespass as well. Um, you know, thank thanks to our partnership with with Pasco County. That is something that that we do have uh some of these cameras at county parks, for instance, to to attempt to uh end trespassing on on boat ramps and things like that uh after hours. Um but but with those those limited
things, uh I do want to talk about just a A couple of um success stories that that come with this. So this is a case from uh about two weeks ago. Uh so we received a call from a uh nearby law enforcement agency that they were conducting a murder for hire investigation. Uh uh a man was attempting to uh contract with another person to kill that man's wife, and uh they had the suspect's vehicle and license plate. Uh So and through partnership with Flock Safety, they had conducted
a license plate read that showed that the individual, as you see there, was on the Sun Coast Parkway at Highway 54 and had moved into Pasco Sheriff's Office jurisdiction. So we were able to intercept that vehicle, and as he was pulling into a parking lot, suspecting me to Hitman, he met a sheriff's deputy instead and was taken into custody. custody uh and so he was arrested for uh conspiracy in an attempt to uh you know for for a murder for hire. Uh that was that was two weeks ago. License this is the the one um real example as you see we we did black
out the the license plate um so it's not visible but uh the these are real world scenarios uh and and again one within just just a couple of weeks. Um next slide So again, some more cases. You know, the the case that I spoke about earlier in South Carolina, where we had an endangered juvenile that had gotten into a vehicle. We suspect that she was going to become a victim of human trafficking. The individual, the male individual she was with, actually took her to a location near Columbia, South Carolina. As you can imagine,
that type of investigation can take days, weeks, Weeks, months, you know, and and who knows how successful we would have been in finding her. But thanks to the the camera reads and a witness who provided us the license plate of the vehicle that she was seen getting into, we were able in about 12 hours to locate that vehicle, and local law enforcement in South Carolina were able to recover her safely and arrest the individual. And that goes back to the to the data sharing, as I said, to allow us to share. That with uh a law enforcement AC all the way up in South Carolina. Um, you
know, there are also numerous um you know uh missing juveniles we found. Um and in fact, missing persons is is our primary use of of this. As you see there on the right, uh a single LPR hit led units straight to a missing danger adult who was located in and uh recovered safely. That happens a lot with with silver alerts when the individual may be driving away in a vehicle they own and uh a loved one or someone that cares to them gives a license plate, we can really pinpoint where where they are, what intersections they they've gone through, and that allows us to then um re respond to that again within that that very narrow parameter
of of what we're allowed to search. Next slide. And so again, these are just some some other uh real life uh examples. Um so we had a wanted suspect who uh was wanted for domestic burglary, um we had a strangulation suspect, we had a a re a repeat retail theft suspect. Um next slide please. Um a key individual that was involved in a homicide, um stolen vehicle alerts, uh next slide. Again, there there are uh numerous cases um you
know that that go into the the benefits of these. Um in fact we we had a case with a a stolen vehicle. Um it was being towed by by a tow truck. Uh so the the L PR had a had a hit that showed that that license plate was was active. Whenever the investigating deputy pulled it up, it noticed that the
Chase, you got a bunch of stuff here, but we got a bunch of agenda. Absolutely yeah, so so
So you can look at it, so that'd be fine. But and and again, I don't have any problem with the way you guys have actually done it. Problem I has comes with like emails that I got earlier. Um and it also it says this, it says, I believe the widespread warrantless collection and retention of this information raises serious Fourth Amendment concerns. The Fourth Amendment protects Americans against unreasonable searches. You've used the word search in this whole presentation probably twenty times. Nobody here. I
don't think in the public. Wants to be watched by the government over and over again. Well, the work you do with the information is great. However, when you get a private company that can take this information, especially from what seems to be going on from a report I got from Gain SEC, which I've actually got Todd Bailey from IT looking at to see all these uh issues that are going on with it to go check with the data as far as what's being stolen even from Flock. Never mind what Flock's using it for or selling it
for. The basic thing is you you use the word an authorized search. None of the people driving along that didn't give you authorization to me or an author makes it an unauthorized search. Um the compilation of all the data is where the problem is. Not just you reading a plate, sounds great, but that's the data collection and what goes on is where the big problem is, and that's where I think you're getting to where we're stepping over where people don't want all that data put on them, which could be used again.
I mean we have You know, m m Miranda loves to go to go check people out to say you're gonna you're uh you're under Uh you know, arrest for whatever, but you're doing searches without any of that information. If the private group wants to go out, like Lowe's wants to have a camera out, if I want to have a ring camera, which I do. I I'm protecting myself. That's good. But for us to go put in the public right away to collect this data, which could be used who knows how many other ways, in a negative way. Never mind all the good ways, but the negative ways, to me goes against the American liberty that we have. So I'm gonna
say to the board, whatever you want to do is fine. We can't do this today, but I'm gonna tell you I object to these. I wanna see them pulled and and can't be done today anyway, but I think I think depending on what happens, we'll see what the public wants to say about it. But again, I I got strong uh concerns to it and I do want to see them pulled and I want the contract ended. We do have the interlocal, we can do it, but it's up to the board. Commissioner Yeager.
So So Chase, just to clarify, you said you had to have a case number, correct?
Correct. Or or or an act of call. Yes, ma'am.
So you're not just searching random people. You're you are you you have to have a case number, you have to be a criminal.
And it has to fall within one of those fourteen uh authorized uses.
So we're not just searching people that are driving to publics. Correct.
And the question is, it's not that they're doing it. I'm gonna call a point of order.
We got a lot of Rs and we got to get them done this morning. This is not on the agenda today. I recommend we bring it back for discussion.
I think we should. Thank you. I agree with that. Thank you very much. Yeah, I agree with it too. But I again, like data centers, rather than something explode, I want to get the conversation out there. So Chase, thank you. And again, I don't have a problem with what your team does, but the other issue. Yeah. Okay, so consent agenda. We have
a full pole. Resolutions. Resolutions.