The following letter was sent to Sen. Russ Huxtable, Rep. Claire Snyder-Hall, Rehoboth Beach Mayor Stan Mills and other Rehoboth officials with a copy provided to the Cape Gazette for publication.
I have been a full-time resident in Lewes for 15 years and spend a significant amount of time in Rehoboth Beach for business and recreation. I have worked in the cybersecurity industry for over 25 years, including support to the defense, intelligence, law enforcement, national security and commercial sectors.
Recently, I was alarmed to learn that the Rehoboth Beach Police Department has implemented the Flock Automated License Plate Reader system. As a local resident with extensive security and privacy experience, I have several questions regarding the implementation of this system in Rehoboth Beach.
1. Could you please clarify whether the RBPD's use of Flock's ALPR service allows external law enforcement entities to access the locally generated license plate scans? As widely reported, ICE and countless law enforcement agencies nationwide have access to this scan data by default. This access can be disabled by the implementing agency.
Such broad and baseless use of the ALPR scans would be a grave invasion of privacy for anyone on the local roads. As documented below, this could also include risks to their safety and security at the whims of countless persons with access to the system, without justification or any sense of probable cause.
2. Does the department have plans to use the Flock’s future Nova functionality to implement technology that associates license plates to personally identifiable records for individual people?
The ethics of using of this technology in general is subject to debate, and I believe there are certainly reasonable implementations, configurations and uses for the service and its functionality. However, the unfettered access to such data from a town that relies on tourism for most of its economic success represents a significant risk to its residents and visitors alike.
There are suggested best practices available to mitigate the inherent risks in the Flock contract. I am sure that anyone living in or visiting the area would welcome the insight to the RBPD’s use of this new and potentially invasive service.
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