OLYPHANT, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 A consideration for a police technology expense in Olyphant is drawing questions from residents, as the borough continues to face opposition over major infrastructure projects, including proposed data center development.<\/p>\n
Borough council is considering spending more than $4000 on license plate reader technology.<\/p>\n
Olyphant police aren\u2019t using Flock cameras, they\u2019re using a different system from Axon, which is already in six police vehicles.<\/p>\n
Police say they chose Axon over Flock because they believe it gives officers another tool to identify vehicles connected to crimes, while residents want more information about what data is collected and who can access it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAxon cameras are being utilized in these police cars. It\u2019s important that we understand the true threat of the network that they are connected to in the ways in which they have the possibility of being misappropriated and utilized against us,” said Harley Adler, an Olyphant resident.<\/p>\n
Olyphant currently has nine full-time and four part-time police officers.<\/p>\n
The department has six Axon license plate readers, but they\u2019re not permanently mounted around the borough. They\u2019re inside police vehicles.<\/p>\n
Chief James Devoe says Flock was considered as an option, but the department ultimately chose Axon.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great tool for us to have to keep everyone else safe. There\u2019s a small percentage of people that don\u2019t do right and that cost a lot of money for people their insurance that they pay for the registration and do all the right things that they\u2019re supposed to do to keep their license up-to-date, so we\u2019re really just trying to protect those people,” said DeVoe.<\/p>\n
According to Flock\u2019s own comparison with Axon, Flock says its technology is part of a nationwide network that allows participating agencies to share information.<\/p>\n
Axon, meanwhile, says its license plate reader data is limited to an agency\u2019s own data ecosystem rather than a shared national network.<\/p>\n
Flock also advertises more advanced vehicle searches, including identifying characteristics beyond the license plate itself.<\/p>\n
Axon\u2019s system focuses on license plates and vehicle descriptions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we sit an officer to type in every single plate that this thing runs, I need five officers sitting in the same spot typing up all the plate plates. This thing runs all those places and just hits us off a PA hot list for registration and license and cancellations on insurance and stuff like that or warrant somebody driving a car with a felony warning it\u2019ll pop up,” DeVoe.<\/p>\n
Devoe says the Axon system does not use facial recognition.<\/p>\n
Instead, it can alert officers to information tied to a vehicle, including suspended registrations, insurance issues, canceled licenses or warrants.<\/p>\n
He says the technology has also helped officers investigate crimes, including motorcycle and dirt bike thefts. In one case, police Axon camera captured a vehicle that helped investigators solve the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really just trying to keep citizens safe,” said DeVoe.<\/p>\n
But Devoe says Olyphant\u2019s system is not currently shared with neighboring Blakely or surrounding communities.<\/p>\n
And police say the cameras Olyphant currently uses are leased and remain inside patrol cars rather than being permanently mounted throughout the borough.<\/p>\n
Council has not approved the proposed payment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OLYPHANT, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 A consideration for a police technology expense in Olyphant is drawing questions from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-263697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}