Protesters will gather outside Kalamazoo City Hall this evening, with organizers hoping to push the city to stop using controversial automatic license plate reading (ALPR) cameras made by Flock Safety.
The protest, called “Get the Flock Out of KZoo,” is being organized by the Southwest Michigan Democratic Socialists of America.
Branch Co-Chair Euan Simpson said people from across the political spectrum have voiced concerns about ALPR cameras.
“People are willing to look past who voted for who or whatever and be able to just look at this as an issue of kind of freedom, an issue of being able to travel around our community without being mass surveilled.”
He added that his group has submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for data on the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety's Flock cameras, adding that what the branch received was concerning.
"There was over 100,000 Flock searches on KDPS's cameras between January and July this year. And we found that 90% of those searches done by KDPS had no case number attached to them," Simpson said.
"Which means there's no real way for us to figure out why they were searching those cameras and what those searches were for. So, quite frankly, we don't know if KDPS are up to the same shenanigans that we're finding in communities across the nation."
Kalamazoo Public Safety denied WMUK’s Freedom of Information Act request for the locations of its ALPR cameras, despite the surveillance technology being in public view.
“It's very concerning that KDPS aren't willing to share even just the locations of those cameras and hiding behind the guise of ‘oh, actually that's for the public safety’ that they can't know where this mass surveillance technology is,” Simpson said.
In an email to WMUK, KDPS said it has a number of safeguards in place for its Flock cameras, including one to flag unusual database searches.
"KDPS is reviewing the new safeguards announced by Flock Safety and evaluating how the remaining recommendations may affect our current practices and policies," the statement read.
"KDPS already has several of these safeguards in place, including mandatory multi-factor authentication, use of Flock’s Audit Assistance tool to identify potentially unusual search activity, and restrictions limiting what outside agencies may access and search."
The statement also pointed to a page on its website with some data on how the technology is used.
"KDPS has also added a Flock Transparency Portal to the department’s public transparency webpage. This public-facing portal provides information about how KDPS uses Flock technology, including its policies, data retention practices, approved sharing partners, and system usage," the statement read.
"We have not made any final decisions regarding additional changes, including Flock’s new recommended retention period. KDPS will continue evaluating the operational, investigative, privacy, and policy implications before determining whether further changes are appropriate."
The protest begins at 6:30 PM.
