Starke County officials speak out as county will not renew Flock contract
STARKE COUNTY, Ind. -- Public pushback and privacy concerns have put an end to the Flock surveillance camera system in Stark County.
The sheriff's office confirmed Starke County will not renew its contract with Flock - the automatic license plate readers set up all over the nation - and sparking widespread protests.
For many, the decision came as a surprise.
“Well, our contract was up September 14 and we just decided not to renew it partially because Flock doesn’t have any internal controls on the data," says Starke County sheriff Jack Rosa, "and we didn’t feel comfortable with that data floating around out there without having any controls on them.”
The department had a two-year contract with Flock.
Now, it will buy itself out of that contract on Monday, September 14.
"We're waiting on them, but we think it'll be 500 a camera, but we not - that's not for sure, but that's what we believe. It'll be somewhere in that ballpark," says Rosa.
It would have cost the department 33 thousand dollars to renew its contract.
There are 10 Flock cameras in Starke County and all of them will be taken down - but the timeline for that is unclear.
"Whenever they get around to doing it. That's their discretion," says Rosa.
The Starke County Sheriff's Department does not remove the Flock cameras.
Rosa says he understands people's concerns of Big Brother watching them - but says Flock has been beneficial for the department.
"I can't say enough that it is a very valuable tool, and if they figure out how to regulate it, then it'd be very good."
Rosa says as of right now... another license plate reader provider won't take its place.
"I think, judicially, there's going to be a point intime where there's we have some kind of laws or rules to go by, and until we have that, we're definitely not going to definitely not going to do it. But if we get that, if we got that, then we would definitely revisit it," says Rosa.
The big question for many of you... what happens to your data once the contract ends?
"We don't know. That's the problem. That's part of the problem," says Rosa.
Rosa says his department has had no concerns about misuse.
ABC57 will reach out to Flock for further comment.