At the September 20th City Council meeting the Urbana Police Department (UPD) presented their desire to deploy a network of expensive license plate cameras for the purpose of solving crimes. These automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) automatically read license plate numbers, photograph vehicles, and save the data into a searchable database for the police department.
The presentation was given by Urbana Police Chief Bryant Seraphin, City Administrator Carol Mitten, and Dan Murdock, a salesman from the company Flock Safety. Through Flock Safety, the ALPRs would cost $2,500 per year for each unit, plus $250 to install or relocate each camera. Urbana City officials want to start with 20 cameras, then possibly increase that number by a multiple.
The images, location, and license plate numbers would be stored in a searchable database, held and managed by Flock Safety off site on cloud servers. Murdock gave various assurances that the data would not be sold or given to third parties without permission from Urbana Police.
From Flock Safety’s website:
“With FlockOS, our patented Vehicle FingerprintTM technology lets you search by vehicle make, color, type, license plate, state of the license plate, missing plate, covered plate, paper plate, and unique vehicle details like roof racks, bumper stickers, and more.”
After the presentation, members of the public and some City Council members expressed concern about possible abuse with such a powerful tracking system.
The September 20th Urbana City Council discussion on ALPRs can be viewed here:
On Monday, October 4th, the Committee of the Whole will consider a budget amendment to pay for the purchase and installation of the first 20 cameras, totaling $50,437. The budget amendment can be viewed here (click image for full 5-page PDF):
