After a brief question-and-answer with Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station Capt. Justin Diez during Tuesday’s City Council meeting, the council approved a $500,000, multiyear contract with Flock Safety, which operates a growing network of license plate-reading cameras.  The equipment and web services have been touted for months by city officials as a way to give an efficiency boost to a Sheriff’s Department dealing with historic lows in its staffing levels.  City Councilman Jason Gibbs asked a few questions about data security, storage and the tech before the deal was unanimously approved by the council.  “The ALPR (automated license-plate reader) technology is something that’s changing pretty dramatically,” said Gibbs, an engineer whose day job includes working with launch systems, describing how the cameras use nascent and emerging artificial intelligence tech to not only read plates but also car details, with the ability to share that information with law enforcement to help fight crime and improve safety.  Noting the cameras are already in use in nearby LASD stations, including Lancaster, Palmdale and La Crescenta, Gibbs asked about the data access and collection: The data is supposed to be shared with other law enforcement agencies and deleted after 30 days, per the contract.  He wanted to know what could trigger access and sharing for the potentially personal or identifying vehicle information.   “There’s a couple answers to that,” Diez said. “Ultimately, the data is going to be accessed whenever there’s a ‘hit,’” he said, referring to a camera that might have detected the plate of a stolen car or one belonging to a vehicle believed to be transporting a missing person.  “That’s when we would access it,” he said   “The flip side of that, what I think you’re getting more toward, is the investigative part of it,” he added, “and where that would come into play would be if a crime has happened, you know, a couple blocks away, and there’s only a partial description of the car, detectives could later, up to 30 days — because the data is only kept for 30 days and then it’s wiped from the servers … then the detective could work backward and figure out what that plate is,” he said,  Gibbs also asked about the sharing protocols with other law enforcement agencies.  While the information won’t be shared with any private organization, if there is an agreement in place with another law enforcement agency, then the LASD has reciprocity with those entities.  In shared circumstances, the deputies are able to directly access the other agencies’ camera systems and vice versa, Diez said.  In response to a question about any pending case law or potential constitutional concerns regarding privacy laws and the cameras, City Attorney Joe Montes said the national network does have pending lawsuits, but he was not aware of “any final determinations.”  Toward the end of the discussion, Gibbs said he favored anything that would help make the job of law enforcement officers easier, but he had an ask for city staff:  “The only request that I would make is that for the quarterly updates that we do for Public Safety Committee, is if we can have discussion on LASD here locally using this data and using this system,” he said, which includes staying abreast of any legal changes.  There were no pending L.A. County lawsuits as of this story’s publication. A federal judge recently dismissed a lawsuit in Ohio claiming Flock was negligent in failing to remove a license plate from its system, which resulted in an unwarranted traffic stop.   A federal civil rights lawsuit filed in Virginia last month by the Institute for Justice might prove to be the latest legal challenge: The suit claims the 170 cameras installed throughout Norfolk in 2023 constitute a “massive vehicle surveillance system” that creates “warrantless searches” and removes the oversight of judges, who usually approve such searches.  In the Institute for Justice’s release announcing the lawsuit, the organization quotes the city’s police chief as calling the system “a nice curtain of technology.”  The city of Santa Clarita’s contract states the ALPR cameras only capture photos, with no live feed or surveillance monitoring. The chosen locations for the 35 cameras in Santa Clarita similarly will be picked based on a strategic geomapping of the area.  “In the event that Flock determines that Flock hardware will not achieve optimal functionality at a designated location, Flock shall have final discretion to veto a specific location, and will provide alternative options to customer,” according to the contract.  Diez said a patrol deputy legally can run any license plate through the system without a cause or reason, adding a “judicious deputy” who’s making the most of free time might be able to check 60 or so during a shift while looking for anything suspicious.  “And you may find that stolen car, you may find that abducted child, you may find that missing person — and there’s big limitations to that, as you can imagine,” Diez said, because those checks have to be between calls and all the other regular duties the job entails.  The camera and data tools from Flock, which was started in 2017, represent a game-changer in that respect, he said.  “The cameras though are running, potentially, you know, thousands of plates per minute, more or less,” Diez said, “and really taking the human-error element out of it.”  The post City OKs contract to help LASD with license-plate readers   appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.