\n Dallas Oversight Board To Examine Flock Cameras | Image by Matt Gush\/Shutterstock <\/p>\n
Dallas\u2019 Community Police Oversight Board will examine<\/a> the city\u2019s Flock automated license plate reader network Tuesday evening, putting Dallas Police Department data retention, sharing practices and crime-solving claims under public scrutiny as North Texas governments take sharply different approaches to the technology.<\/p>\n The board will meet at 5:30 p.m. October 13 in the Dallas City Hall Council Chambers. The posted agenda includes presentations from DPD and Flock Safety, a University of North Texas at Dallas criminal justice professor, the ACLU of Texas and the Center for Justice Research.<\/p>\n Dallas Lists 690 Cameras And One-Year Retention<\/p>\n DPD\u2019s presentation for the meeting lists<\/a> 690 Flock cameras and a 365-day retention period. It says searches require an offense type, investigative reason and case number, and the platform logs all user activity for compliance.<\/p>\n The department says 2,109 DPD personnel have access to the platform. In September, users conducted 37,508 searches tied to 3,007 unique case numbers and 5,432 unique license plates, according to the presentation.<\/p>\n DPD also says it shares Dallas camera access with 202 law enforcement agencies, all in Texas, and no federal agencies. Another 1,063 agencies share their camera networks with Dallas police.<\/p>\n Those figures align with changes The Dallas Express previously covered<\/a> when DPD reduced direct sharing from more than 1,500 agencies to 202 Texas agencies and stopped sharing Dallas data with federal partners.<\/p>\n The retention period remains a key point of scrutiny.<\/p>\n A separate presentation for Tuesday\u2019s meeting says Flock\u2019s current default retention period is seven days, while Dallas\u2019 DPD deck lists 365 days. DX previously found<\/a> that DPD\u2019s publicly posted general order called for 30-day ALPR retention even as department presentations described one-year storage.<\/p>\n Police Cite Investigative Results<\/p>\n In the deck\u2019s current metrics, DPD identifies automated license plate readers as the primary solving factor in 15.9% of homicide cases, 12.5% of business robberies, 10.9% of individual robberies, 16.7% of aggravated kidnappings and 13.1% of aggravated assaults.<\/p>\n The presentation also cites a June case in which a Flock camera detected the vehicle of a missing, insulin-dependent person with dementia or Alzheimer\u2019s disease. Officers located the person and reunited the individual with family.<\/p>\n Dallas\u2019 current camera count follows a late-September agreement under which Flock kept<\/a> more than 300 cameras that had lost state grant support online for at least 90 days after Gov. Greg Abbott froze state funding for the technology, per CBS News.<\/p>\n North Texas Governments Take Different Paths<\/p>\n The regional response has split sharply. Wylie ended<\/a> its Flock relationship after the City Council voted 7-0 not to renew a contract covering six cameras.<\/p>\n Hood County shut<\/a> down and covered its county-operated cameras after commissioners and residents raised privacy and mass-surveillance concerns.<\/p>\n Carrollton moved the other direction. Its City Council renewed<\/a> a three-year agreement covering 82 cameras despite extended public opposition over privacy, data sharing and oversight.<\/p>\n