NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — They help police fight crime in Hampton Roads.
News 3 has been bringing you stories about law enforcement technology, including ShotSpotter and Flock cameras, which have helped in homicide investigations as well as find stolen cars and missing people.
But both devices are the subject of concerns over personal privacy.
For Lisa Meyers, safety is top of mind.
Lately, she’s noticed and supports cameras set up on roads near her church around Suffolk and Isle of Wight County.
“I'm always concerned on a Sunday morning,” Meyers said. “We could be very vulnerable, and there have been churches that have been bothered before.”
Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew is all in on crime-fighting technology, including ShotSpotter.
“It allows us to start,” Drew said. “It’s not just a fish net. It's all about investigations, and it's about keeping our community safe.”
Two years ago, News 3 sat down with Chief Drew to talk about the technology.
Newport News Police officials said the department has had hundreds of offenses associated with ShotSpotter alerts in the city, including shootings and homicides.
“I believe it is a game changer for us,” Drew said.
This past year, another technology surfaced in the city.
Flock Safety cameras have been placed around the city in areas based on recent crime stats.
These cameras can identify license plate numbers and letters, and other features of cars, all within seconds.
“It's able to determine whether that vehicle is known to be a stolen vehicle, associated with a wanted offender, or associated with a missing person, and then flag that vehicle in an alert for local law enforcement,” Flock spokeswoman Holly Beilin said.
Flock cameras are installed in departments throughout Hampton Roads.
Hampton Roads law enforcement seeing results from Flock Safety cameras
In Newport News, they've been up and running for about a year, and Chief Drew said their tech has helped find more than 40 stolen vehicles.
“Technology may not tell us who's driving that vehicle, but if that vehicle is seen leaving the scene of a homicide, it's an avenue for investigators,” Drew said.
But both tools have been the center of questions regarding privacy.
For Flock, the ACLU has raised concerns, saying in part, "The police do not need records of every person's coming and goings, including trips to doctor's offices, religious institutions, and political gatherings."
News 3 took these concerns to Flock officials.
“We don't have speed recognition on these cameras. They're not red-light cameras. They don't have facial recognition, and they're not video cameras that are tracking people,” Beilin told News 3. “It is really solely to pull a license plate and vehicle details.”
Beilin also told News 3 if an image from a Flock camera of a particular license plate is never used in a criminal investigation, it automatically goes away after 30 days.
She added the company also has safeguards for accountability and transparency, including easy to pull auditing reports, and required search justifications every time police perform a search with cameras.
FAQ - Flock Safety Cameras Privacy and Access
As for ShotSpotter, News 3 asked Chief Drew about a recent privacy audit of the technology by NYU that was requested by the technology’s parent company.
The report concluded, "The risk of voice surveillance is extremely low."
It also gave recommendations that ShotSpotter, according to NYU, has adopted.
They include reducing the length of audio stored on each sensor and not sharing precise sensor locations with law enforcement.
“It has been a checks and balances,” Drew said.
Drew supports the audit, and mentioned his department has their own policies regarding law enforcement technology like Flock cameras and ShotSpotter sensors.
“That stuff is private. It is used for investigation,” Drew said.
A NNPD spokesperson provided the following information from the department’s policies regarding the use of ShotSpotter and Flock cameras:
The Newport News Police Department uses automated license plate reader technology to convert data associated with vehicle license plates and vehicle descriptions for official law enforcement purposes, including identifying stolen or wanted vehicles, stolen license plates and missing persons. It may also be used to gather information related to active warrants, crime suspects and stolen property recovery. ALPR systems are not used for surveillance, but only for public safety-related missions.
Similarly, NNPD uses gunshot detection sensors to aid in crime scene evidence collection, and the investigation and prosecution of violent crime.
Drew also mentioned that he doesn’t know where exactly the ShotSpotter sensors have been placed in his city, adding that the parent company helped choose where to install them after looking at crime data.
“You kind of get out of technology what you put into it, but you also have to be held accountable for it,” Drew said.
ShotSpotter's parent company, SoundThinking, posted to the following to their website addressing privacy:
"As technology continues to advance, balancing its benefits against some of its inherent risks to privacy continues to be an issue which confronts us all. What’s true for technology in general is also the case in the realm of public safety. Technological advances have provided significant benefits to those tasked with keeping us safe while at the same time raising appropriate dialogue about how we can leverage those benefits while minimizing unwarranted intrusions on personal privacy.
Several police tools and technologies capture information that is already in public view: license plate readers, video cameras at stoplights and ATMs, combined video/audio surveillance cameras, facial recognition algorithms, etc. Unlike general audio and video surveillance devices, such as the tens of thousands of video cameras deployed in our nation’s cities which monitor general activities, gunshot detection technology is designed to trigger on loud explosive or impulsive sounds that may likely be gunfire and occur only rarely—and that the public already “hears”.
The company takes privacy very seriously and has structured its technology, processes and policies in such a way to minimize risk of privacy infringements while still delivering important public safety benefits."
The company also lists community privacy protections.
Some points state that human voices and street noise will never trigger a sensor, sensors store 30 hours of audio and automatically delete audio older than 30 hours, and neither police nor third parties ever have direct access to this audio.
SoundThinking: ShotSpotter Community Privacy Protections
As for Meyers, she believes more technology means more peace of mind.
“I want to see it safe,” Meyers said. “If it helps to find out when somebody's doing something wrong, those of us who are doing things right don't need to be worried do we,” she said.
Chief Drew also told me his city has at least 30 Flock cameras currently up and running, and are adding more cameras, that will eventually put the total at 74 Flock cameras in Newport News.
