Mat-Su Assembly bans borough use of Flock-style license plate readers

What you need to know:

• The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly unanimously approved an ordinance banning the borough from buying or using automated license plate readers, commonly known as Flock cameras, citing privacy and civil liberties concerns.
• The ordinance prevents borough use of the technology and its installation on borough property but does not restrict federal or state agencies from using it on their property or residents from using it on private property.
• Borough officials say the borough has never used the technology. Cameras recently reported in Wasilla as possible license plate readers were identified by state transportation officials as traffic-monitoring cameras that do not track specific vehicles.
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PALMER — The Matanuska-Susitna Borough is banned from buying or using automated license plate readers under an ordinance unanimously approved by the Mat-Su Assembly this month.

The measure also blocks the borough from spending money on contracts that use such systems or allowing federal or state officials to install them on borough land or in borough rights of way.

Automated license plate readers, known as ALPRs and widely sold by technology company Flock Safety, became a nationwide flashpoint this fall because of widespread privacy concerns.

The systems use artificial intelligence to create automated, searchable indexes of passing vehicles. They have been linked to reports of improper and warrantless arrests. Officials with the National Rifle Association have raised concerns that the cameras could be used to track gun owners. The American Civil Liberties Union warns that the cameras facilitate “unprecedented spying.”

The new Mat-Su law is designed to block borough use of the cameras because they can create “a permanent tracking record of everyday citizens without reasonable suspicion or a warrant,” according to a memo attached to the ordinance.

“The transparency, data security, and potential sharing of surveillance information with third-party or federal entities present structural risks to civil liberties that outweigh their purported public safety benefits,” the memo states.

The borough Assembly measure was sponsored by Assembly member Michael Bowles and approved during a regular Assembly meeting Tuesday.

“We live in a free society: We should not be tracked, we should not be recorded,” Bowles said during the meeting.

There are no recent verified instances of ALPR use in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

State transportation officials said cameras reported in Wasilla last month on the crowdsourced Flockcameralocations.com are state transportation MioVision cameras, which collect car- and pedestrian-related safety data rather than identifying and tracking the movements of specific vehicles.

The borough has never used ALPR cameras and did not have plans to do so before the ordinance was proposed and approved, officials said. Bowles said the update is a necessary step to block any future use, including under potential contracts between the borough and the Palmer and Wasilla police departments.

The new rules affect only borough government or contractor use, borough attorney Nicholas Spiropoulos said during the meeting. They do not block the use of the technology by federal or state agencies on their property or by residents on private property because the borough lacks the authority to make such rules.

The measure also does not affect the use of general security cameras, such as those used to monitor buildings, Spiropoulos said.

-- Contact Amy Bushatz at contact@matsusentinel.com