Concerns are growing over police surveillance cameras in Rancho Cordova.<\/p>\n
The City of Rancho Cordova is spending more than $1 million on a five-year contract with Flock Safety to install 53 roadside cameras around town.<\/p>\n
The system automatically captures license plate numbers of vehicles passing by and provides that data to police.<\/p>\n
“We use it from any crime, from theft all the way up to shootings and worse, and so it is a valuable tool for us,” said Rancho Cordova Police Chief Mathew Tamayo.<\/p>\n
Tamayo said the technology is helping solve the growing number of mailbox thefts in the city.<\/p>\n
“Since our Flock network went live, we had 19 mail theft arrests and 13 of them were as a result of flock,” he said. “It was one piece of information that we used in our broader investigation.”<\/p>\n
But a number of other places in California, like Santa Clara County, are ending the use of flock cameras due to privacy concerns.<\/p>\n
An audit in Ventura County found that the data was shared with out-of-state law enforcement, including federal agents, which violates state law.<\/p>\n
“There are severe privacy issues found from the flock system that the public is becoming increasingly more aware of,” Said Katelyn Sheehan, a resident of Rancho Cordova.<\/p>\n
Some Rancho Cordova residents are now calling on the city to cancel its contract with Flock, creating a website called Deflock Rancho Cordova, along with writing letters and speaking out at this week’s city council meeting.<\/p>\n
“I am asking that we suspend the system until we confirm no unintended illegal use has occurred,” Sheehan said.<\/p>\n
But Chief Tamayo said Rancho Cordova has safeguards in place to protect the data from being accessed without authorization.<\/p>\n
“We didn’t share with anybody out of state. We didn’t share it with any federal agencies,” he said. “I understand immigration enforcement is a huge concern, and we were not sharing that information.”<\/p>\n
Rancho Cordova police said they’re working with the nearby cities of Folsom, Citrus Heights, Galt and West Sacramento to create a regional real-time information center in Elk Grove where the cameras can be monitored.<\/p>\n
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