Durango residents are taking a diplomatic approach to passing regulations of Flock Safety surveillance cameras and similar automated license plate reader technology (ALPR).
Residents filled Smith Council Chambers last week, asking City Council to cooperate in revising a resident-proposed Protect Our Privacy Ordinance in a way acceptable to both officials and the residents.
Councilor Shirley Gonzales has previously said she supports the ordinance, which, if adopted, would require law enforcement to obtain warrants before searching Durango’s Flock database for information collected by any of the city’s 21 cameras set up around town.
The ordinance as proposed would also limit Durango Police Department’s retention of data captured by Flock to 72 hours – except in circumstances such as an ongoing investigation – and create an independent resident oversight committee to ensure the ordinance is followed.
On Tuesday, Gonzales asked for the ordinance to be placed on the city’s April 21 meeting agenda for consideration. If it receives majority support from City Council, it would be formally introduced at the May 5 meeting.
Councilor Dave Woodruff requested a separate resolution that, if adopted, would direct the city manager to provide monthly updates at City Council meetings about publicly releasable Flock information.
He said that would include but not be limited to “the utilization of the system by officers (and) jurisdictions requesting access, and access that was granted to other jurisdictions.”
Resident and DeFlock Durango organizer Ben Peters said DeFlock Durango has taken a cooperative approach to presenting its ordinance – including an invitation to City Council and city staff members to help shape the ordinance – in the interest of reaching a compromise and getting regulations in place in a timely manner.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado helped DeFlock Durango draft the proposed ordinance.
“While there are a lot of folks who want the cameras gone entirely, even the folks who are OK with the police department using the camera system, they supported having safeguards and restrictions on access,” he said. “For example, a warrant requirement for outside agencies to access our data.”
Peters said DeFlock Durango is not full of public policy experts, and he hopes working with councilors will set privacy protections that still allow DPD’s use of ALPRs in place sooner.
He said he supports Woodruff’s resolution for regular public presentations about Flock system requests.
“It’s important that we’re all working from the same set of facts, and I think that for the City Council to start seeing a lot of the data that we’ve been seeing and see reports that confirm a lot of the things that we’re saying will strengthen us, and it’ll help in this negotiation process,” he said.
He said DeFlock Durango has been criticized by residents who don’t think the ordinance goes far enough and want a full ban on ALPRs. But a compromise could get protections in place sooner than a ballot initiative, for example, and doesn’t burn good will with City Council.
“Let’s say you’re unsuccessful with an initiative. It’s harder to come back to council after that,” he said.
He said he is optimistic about finding common ground with City Council.
Sixteen Durango and La Plata County residents provided public comments supporting the Protect Our Privacy Ordinance on April 7. Many of the comments appeared to have been organized by DeFlock Durango ahead of time, with some picking up where others left off.
Police Chief Brice Current said at a Thursday meeting about new first responder technology that questioning new technologies is healthy. But the proposal to require officers to obtain a warrant in order to access Flock data impedes officers’ ability to do their jobs.
He said Flock data is the first step in investigative and constitutional policing.
“(You) go out and do the work, interview the people, look at the data, then get a search warrant, then get an arrest warrant,” he said. “That’s why you’ll hear us fighting (in) the other direction on that.”
cburney@durangoherald.com
