The City of Bloomington announced it would not renew its contract with Flock Safety in April, but other local agencies’ Flock cameras are still operating in Monroe County.
Flock Safety is known for its automated license plate reader cameras, and the technology is used by over 5,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, including the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and the Indiana University Police Department.
The Monroe County Board of Commissioners approved an initial contract with Flock Safety in September 2021 totaling $16,500 for six license plate reader cameras placed at various intersections in the county.
Monroe County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Jeff Brown confirmed the agency has an active contract with Flock and uses the cameras to assist with active investigations.
“It could be a missing person, a missing juvenile, an endangered adult,” he said. “We have our detectives using it for more serious crimes, murders, or robberies, burglaries.”
Brown said the agency once received data from the cameras operated by the Bloomington Police Department, but such sharing ended with the contract.
“When their contract ended, then those cameras basically are paperweights,” Brown said.
IUPD also appear to still be using the technology.
According to Flock audit logs obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, IUPD used Flock camera technology as recently as May 4 to investigate a vehicle theft.
IUPD Public Information Officer Julia Nowak declined an interview request and did not confirm the number of the department’s installed Flock cameras.
BPD Public Information Officer Ryan Pedigo also declined an interview and did not respond to follow-up questions about the number of installed cameras.
After protests against data from the cameras potentially being used to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the city opted to not renew its contract with for technology, which was used by BPD.
The city has restricted access to local Flock data to BPD officers and data analysts as the city transitions away from the technology. The City of Bloomington did not respond to questions about whether installed cameras will eventually be removed.
At an April 22 city council meeting, BPD Chief Mike Diekhoff said that the department operated 11 permanently mounted license plate reader cameras on major public roadways, four permanently mounted cameras placed downtown and four mobile trailers for license plate-reading, video-recording and gunshot detection.
