Lookout Eugene-Sprinfield published an article on August 8, “Springfield chief promises transparency in rolling out license-plate readers” ^{(archive link)}.

The article includes a number of statements from police chief Resch, trying to reassure residents that their concerns are being considered.

It also notes that it was the previous police chief, Andrew Shearer, who pursued the Organized Retail Theft program grants to pay for the initial costs of the city-wide surveillance system. The Organized Retail Theft program has carved at least $8 million out of the state’s general fund, at least some of which has been used to pay Flock Safety to install their devices (which Flock leases, but does not sell) across the state.

To their credit, Springfield has so far been more forthcoming with information about the system than Eugene has. We filed identical public records requests in both Springfield and Eugene; while Springfield provided their list of proposed camera locations, Eugene has cited an Oregon state statute restricting public records requests for “security”.

Resch does however repeat a common statement, that “the intent of these is to capture back license plates”. While police departments may only have access to license plate views, Flock’s cameras have been shown to capture much more. Flock themselves freely advertise their products’ ability to search for pedestrians by clothing description.

Resch is also attempting to preserve out-of-state agencies’ direct access to Springfield’s Flock network, and says that those agencies would have to click a checkbox stating that they cross-their-heart promise not to use that data for immigration enforcement.

This checkbox would have all of the authority and accountability of the checkbox you click promising that you’ve read and agreed to the terms of service for everything you’ve ever signed up for.