Online claims that a controversial surveillance system is being used on Vancouver Island are untrue, according to the City of Nanaimo.
Flock Safety surveillance systems are being used in the U.S. to collect vast amounts of information that has been forwarded to police or ICE agents.
The system has been flagged as being installed in Nanaimo but both the city and a retailer say Flock Safety is not being used here.
One of the locations is near the main entrance to the Home Depot parking lot in Nanaimo. There are cameras mounted to a pole. It’s one of three locations that’s been labeled on the crowdsourced website deflock as having the controversial surveillance system.
In parts of United States there has been a backlash against the Flock Safety cameras, that can record and track licence plates, vehicle makes and models, and people. There are concerns about improper commercial information use and tracked information also being accessed in ICE investigations into the deportation of illegal immigrants.
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Home Depot and Lowe’s does use the Flock Safety system in the U.S. but
in a statement to CHEK News Home Depot says there are no Flock Safety cameras or other automated licence plate readers at Home Depot locations in Canada, saying it uses security cameras at some locations to monitor its parking lots to keep its customers and associates safe.
The deflock website has labelled Albert Street in Nanaimo as also having a Flock Safety camera. The camera in question is mounted to a light pole.
“We don’t capture footage with it. It is simply a traffic counter and so it does not collect licence I.D.s,” said Jamie Rose, the Nanaimo’s manager of transportation.
The City of Nanaimo camera mounted on a street light on Albert Street that the city says it to monitor traffic volumes.
“It doesn’t collect anything like that. It simply reports back to us the number of cars that go back and forth east and west and the number of cyclists and pedestrians that follow the same patterns.”
The city says it does not own any Flock Safety Cameras and the cameras that control light changes at intersections based on traffic waits, don’t record anything.
“Quite bluntly we don’t want to get into holding that information any more than we absolutely need to because for all intensive purposes we have no use for it so we don’t want to be responsible for it,” said Rose.
The other location identified is a surveillance system on a pole in front of the 7-11 on 5th Street. The retailer did not respond to CHEK’s request before the deadline for this story.
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