BY STEPHANIE LAM
Daily Post Correspondent
Redwood City residents are urging the city to remove controversial automatic license plate readers that they say violate the privacy of citizens.
During public comments on Monday, around 15 people came forward to ask council to ditch its contract with Flock Safety when it expires in September, and hold off on the city’s quest to find a new vendor to maintain 25 existing plate readers, or ALPRs.
The Atlanta-based Flock Safety has come under fire after it was revealed that federal agencies, including ICE, gained access to local ALPR networks. The cameras have been shut off in the neighboring towns of Mountain View and Los Altos Hills.
Flock cameras take pictures of license plates and enter them into a da-tabase, which can piece together the comings and goings of drivers – both suspects and people who are innocent.
Redwood City is currently seeking written proposals from vendors to maintain their current ALPRs, according to a request for proposals from police Lt. Diana Villegas.
Proposals from vendors are due Aug. 7, and the final contract will be awarded on Sept. 14, according to Villegas.
At a public hearing on Monday, Liban Sheikh, a former Redwood City resident who frequently commutes in the area, said the city needs to stop the “secret police” who can use the license-plate data to locate and arrest “immigrants and political enemies.”
“ALPR jeopardizes the safety of our most vulnerable communities,” he said. “(The Flock cameras) have no place in the city. At the expense of our community members, Flock is profiting off of our private data.”
Resident Clara Jaeckel, who is a member of the city’s police advisory committee, said license plate readers are making people feel unsafe, and the council should hold off on finding a company to maintain the ALPRs until the city gathers more input from the community.
“This is an important issue that is already the subject of deep public con-cern,” she said. “It’s worth taking a pause to hear from the community, get a deeper understanding and get it right.”
City Council members did not respond to the public comments.
In the proposal request, Villegas writes that ALPR technology has become a “crucial public safety and investigative tool” for the police department that has “directly assisted in the resolution of criminal investigations, the safe recovery of victims and missing persons, the recovery of stolen vehicles and property, and the identification and arrest of suspects.”
Villegas writes that the prospective vendor must provide technical and contractual safeguards that prevent federal agencies, contractors and immigra-tion-related agencies and out-of-state agencies from accessing city data unless authorized by the city.
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