St. Paul mayor, police chief announce removal of Flock cameras

The city of St. Paul says it’s removing its two Flock cameras amid concerns over who has access to the data they collect.

In a joint statement issued Wednesday night, announcing the removal of the two automated license plate readers, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and Police chief Axel Henry said they “understand and share the concerns raised by our community about other jurisdictions accessing data during Operation Metro Surge.”

Her and Henry said they met with law enforcement agencies from across Ramsey County last week to discuss the use of the cameras, and they called on Minnesota lawmakers “to create a statewide standard that creates a balance between privacy and public safety needs.”

“In the interim, the two cameras owned by the City of Saint Paul will be removed,” the mayor and police chief announced.

St. Paul joins a growing list of cities and counties across Minnesota and nationwide that have chosen to remove their Flock cameras.

The announcement came after the St. Paul City Council earlier Wednesday unanimously passed a resolution calling on the city and Ramsey County to end their respective contracts with Flock.

While the city of St. Paul is removing its two cameras, the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office still operates several license-plate reader cameras in the city, in addition to its cameras elsewhere in the county.

Supporters of Flock and similar cameras say they’re a powerful tool for solving crimes.

Resident feedback

Several dozen people from St. Paul and elsewhere in the Twin Cities spoke Wednesday afternoon during a special council meeting focused on police surveillance technology and data privacy.

Chris Daniel, a Ward 1 resident and technology professional, thanked his council member, Anika Bowie, for sponsoring the hearing.

“Throughout the past couple of decades, we’ve witnessed tech companies pushing the boundaries of established law in order to extract profit,” Daniel said. Tech giants, he added, run ahead of regulators and lawmakers — who he said don’t take the time to understand tech.

Ward 1 resident Paige Crawford had a question for council members and all those in positions of power in Minnesota.

“Why are you willing to work with corporations that have used their technologies to commit horrific acts of systemic and direct violence against the people of Minnesota and across the globe?” she asked.

Crawford also asked council members “to seriously reconsider what it means to maintain a contract like this, and the message that decision sends to constituents in the broader Twin Cities metro.”

Council President Rebecca Noecker, who had proposed the nonbinding resolution last week, said after the hearing that law enforcement can keep the community safe without Flock cameras.

“This is about a particular third-party company that has shown egregious abuses of people’s data. Our own police department had shared our people’s data with 60 other agencies until just a couple days ago,” Noecker said, saying that Flock “is not a company that we can trust.”

Noecker said the city made a deal with Flock without notifying City Council.

“Flock was passed last February, and we did not see that contract. I still haven’t seen that contract as of today,” she said after Wednesday’s public hearing.

Noecker said the council has discussed which contracts it should review.

Bowie, the Ward 1 council member, said she looks forward “to having a broader conversation around our contract review and approval authority.”

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