Ian Juarez EDINBURG – ALPRs, or automatic license plate readers, have seen an increase in usage throughout the country, with this technology having made its way to the RGV in recent months.
According to Flock’s website, their main goal is to assist in vehicle related crimes, organized retail crime, and missing persons cases.
Flock cameras operate using solar panels to stay powered while their Free Form AI for ” cross-agency access and real-time alerts.”
Despite there being unofficial maps online, there is no official way to know how many cameras are in any given area or who owns them.
Out of five students interviewed, four students were in opposition to the presence of Flock in the valley.
Electrical engineering freshman Johan Maldonaldo said he and his family are concerned and feel unsafe as immigrants.
“My family is like, you know, we’re not from here. So, they’re always like scared to go outside. They’re scared to go to work they’re scared to do all these things.” Maldonaldo said, ” “Like, there shouldn’t be any more, like tracking things we should, like, have already, you know, like, in place, like, I feel like we already just get tracked enough.”
English freshman Synthia Guevarra said she feels “scared” and does not trust the devices.
(“I think that we are human beings. God gifted us with free will. We should not have to give up any ounce of our privacy for the government, for police departments, for anybody.” Guevarra said “We have these flock cameras, but there’s a lot of people that still go missing every day. So a lot of people that are, like, they don’t find them. And it’s like, what are the Flock cameras for?”
Valley residents have flocked to social media saying:
“Who’s paying for them?”
“Start destroying them.”
And
“Meanwhile they cant finish paving your streets.”
Some residents around the country have gone so far as to post videos of themselves or tutorials for others on how to destroy or disable Flock cameras.
Misuse of ALPR’s from police officers in several states have contributed to some of this online backlash, including a Lufkin county police officer in northeastern Texas.
Its not just residents who are seemingly upset with the cameras, Democratic nominee for Texas Governor Gina Hinojosa posted an ad against flock to her YouTube channel August 25th as a part of her campaign.
Despite the backlash, Hidalgo County Sheriff’s office public informations officer Raul Gonzalez said the cameras are only “an investigative tool for our law enforcement purposes.
Gonzalez encourages residents to not listen to “some of the false information that is out there.”
“So this is an effort as a service to the community, and it has helped us in many cases, and we hope that the community understands that” Gonzalez said.
On the Flock its listed as a direct vendor for the Texas Department of Information Resources allowing “eligible government agencies public schools and higher education institutions to procure our public safety solutions.”
