As Apex residents continue to raise privacy concerns around the town’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) system, Mayor Jacques Gilbert and council member Ed Gray are looking for a middle ground.
At Apex’s Public Safety Committee meeting Thursday, Gilbert and Gray each said they hope to find a compromise: a way to address privacy concerns while continuing to use ALPR technology to increase public safety.
“The question remains: Can we get there in our community?” Gilbert said. “Is there a midway solution? That’s a question I would like to get answered. But prematurely saying it’s bad for our community, I’m not sure. I don’t have enough information yet.”
Police Chief Ryan Johansen also spoke, emphasizing the utility of the ALPR system. A spate of car break-ins, for example, is a difficult problem to tackle without the “right tools,” he said.
“On a typical night in this town, you’re going to have seven to nine cops driving around 28 square miles attempting to stop those things from happening. They have to be wildly lucky, on top of being incredibly diligent, to be successful in that endeavor,” Johansen said.
“So, when a tool comes about that enables them to deliver on that mission of providing safety and solving problems in a community like Apex … they’re going to fight pretty hard for that tool.”
Many of the concerns residents have are around Flock’s searchable database, which police use for investigations, Johansen added.
There’s “huge value” to that tool, he said, but it does have to be balanced with “how long are you keeping it [the data], who are you giving access to, under what circumstances can you search for it, where does it go if it’s deleted, and who is the vendor that’s managing that relationship?”
The public safety committee is expected to tackle those questions at a Dec. 3 meeting, with a policy recommendation to follow. The full town council is expected to vote on the issue before the town’s contract with Flock expires in January.
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