St. Lucie County votes to remove license plate readers over privacy concerns
ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. —
St. Lucie County commissioners voted Tuesday to remove automated license plate readers, including Flock cameras, from county-owned roads and property, while also halting the issuance of new permits and potentially revoking existing ones.
The motion, introduced by Commissioner James Clasby, aims to address privacy concerns and the widespread presence of these devices.
“It’s kind of become a nuisance,” Commissioner Erin Lowry said during the meeting. “I feel like everywhere you turn now in our community is a Flock camera.”
Clasby emphasized the need to protect residents’ privacy, saying, “And I believe that we need to protect our citizens and order the removal from our right-of-way. It’s actually mind-boggling. It’s almost impossible to go anywhere without being tagged by at least one. So that’s my motion. It’s pretty basic, pretty simple.”
The vote passed 3-2, with Commissioner Cathy Townsend and another member expressing a desire for input from local law enforcement before making a decision.
“And let the three head of law enforcement in the county educate us a little bit more on this before I made a decision,” Townsend said.
Privacy concerns were a key focus of the discussion, with Commissioner Jamie Fowler questioning the handling of data collected by the cameras.
“Where is the data going? Who can access it? And is it being used properly?” Fowler said.
In July, a spokesperson for Flock Safety addressed similar concerns during an interview. Paris Lewbel, the spokesperson, explained that data collected by the cameras is controlled by the agency using them and is deleted after 30 days by default.
“It’s that agency only. We have a limited number of engineers that can provide technical support if needed, but that would be documented within the system. And then any of the sharing relationships overall, again, agencies control their data and manage any of the sharing,” Lewbel said.
Lewbel also noted that every search within the Flock platform is recorded in an immutable audit log, which tracks who conducted the search, the reason, and the parameters. “Misuse is completely unacceptable, and in any cases of misuse, it’s been those immutable audit logs that have specifically been able to hold that officer accountable for the misuse,” he said.
Ahead of the meeting, St. Lucie County Sheriff Richard Del Toro released a statement saying his office would comply with the state order to remove cameras from state highways and tighten internal rules but did not call for their removal from county roads.
Port St. Lucie Police Chief John Bolduc also announced an operational pause on automated license plate readers.
The decision by the county commissioners goes beyond the Florida Department of Transportation’s directive to remove cameras from state highways, extending the removal to county-controlled public rights of way.
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