Top law enforcement officials appeared before the Kingston Common Council’s Public Safety and General Government Committee to answer questions about the department’s network of surveillance cameras and automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) amid growing public concern over privacy and mass surveillance. Despite assurances that the department does not employ Flock cameras and does not share data in a nationwide system operated by Motorola, two members of the council expressed serious reservations about continuing the system.

Concerns over surveillance technology have grown along with the spread of AI-assisted networks of ALPRs that allow law enforcement to track plates and potentially individuals in virtual real time anywhere in the country. Those concerns range from reports of police officers using the technology to stalk exes to federal law enforcement agencies, including ICE, using third-party vendors to obtain ALPR data collected by local police agencies without their knowledge or consent.

In response to what she said was a surge in questions about the city’s surveillance capabilities from constituents, Council Majority Leader Michele Hirsch (D-Ward 9) asked KPD leadership to appear before the Public Safety Committee to answer detailed questions about how data from the department’s street cameras and ALPRs is collected, stored and shared.

At Wednesday’s committee meeting, KPD Chief Egidio Tinti and Deputy Chief Ricky Negron explained how the agency uses data from its network of seven ALPRs and 79 “public safety cameras.” Tinti started off by telling the committee that the department does not employ the AI-assisted Flock technology that has emerged at the center of the debate over mass surveillance. Instead, Tinti said, when the department received a $1.14 million state grant to upgrade and expand the camera and ALPR network, he chose to go with Motorola, in part because he believed the company would give the city more control over its data.

“The concern was that because Flock claims to own the data, they would sell it commercially or use it for some commercial purpose,” Tinti told lawmakers. “One of the things that struck me with Motorola is that we own the data. It is stored in the cloud but it is our data and we control the sharing.”

Tinti and Negron went on to explain that data from the street cameras is only shared with a few local law enforcement agencies while ALPR data is fed into a regional Crime Analysis Center accessible by police agencies statewide. Tinti added that the ALPR data was also shared with select federal law enforcement agencies including the FBI, DEA, ATF and U.S. Marshals Service, but not ICE or its investigative arm, Homeland Security Investigations. The Motorola technology gives users the option to share data with its nationwide network, Tinti said, but the KPD has not done so and has no plans to.

In response to a question from Alderman Michael Tierney (D-Ward 2) about a class action lawsuit in California that alleged Motorola had unlawfully shared data from its ALPR network without informing users, Tinti said he had not heard of the allegations but said that, if true, they would lead the department to rethink its relationship with the company.

“If it turns out that’s actually happening, then Motorola has breached the trust of the agencies they sell equipment and software to,” said Tinti. “Then we have to either find another vendor or find another solution.”

Tinti and Negron also answered questions about how long data from cameras and ALPRs is retained. Tinti said that state guidelines called for all data to be kept for six months. Tinti said that’s impossible with the street camera footage because of storage requirements; instead, the footage, which is stored locally on the department’s own servers, is saved for 14-21 days before space runs out and it’s overwritten. The ALPR data, which consists of less storage-intensive still images, is preserved in the cloud for at least six months.

In contrast to some police agencies which give all members access to ALPR and camera data, the KPD limits camera access to 34 police officers and dispatchers who have undergone the required training. Just four officers – members of the department’s traffic safety or detective divisions – have access to LPR data.

“We are an accredited agency, our procedures are tight and I feel confident that as long as Motorola on their end doesn’t do anything with the data we are good stewards,” said Tinti.

Ulster County District Attorney Emmanuel Nneji also addressed the committee, telling lawmakers that the cameras and ALPRs had proven a powerful tool in solving murders and other serious crimes in Kingston. Tinti added that the network had been built in 2021 in response to a surge in violent crime that left community members demanding action. Tinti said that the surveillance systems had allowed detectives to solve violent crimes without having to use notoriously unreliable eyewitness testimony or lean on reluctant citizens for access to their own home security systems.

“Instead of asking or requiring people to become witnesses to something they might not want to be part of why don’t we invest in a system that we have access to then we can remove that,” said Tinti of the rationale behind the surveillance system.

Following the presentation, opinions on the committee were mixed. Alderman Ben Falk, who represents Midtown’s Fourth Ward, traditionally a crime hot spot and the location of the largest concentration of KPD cameras, said he supports maintaining the network, based on conversations with longtime residents who credited the system with bringing crime in the neighborhood down from the frightening peak of the pandemic-era crime surge to what he called a “comfortable” level.

“I just want to go on the record saying I am very much for the cameras,” said Falk, who added that he would support an effort to codify KPD policies to address privacy concerns. “I think that for the residents of Ward 4 and the City of Kingston as a whole they are doing a service that outweighs the damage that could be done.”

Hirsch and Michael Tierney (D-Ward 2), longtime skeptics of the ALPR system (Hirsch voted against their installation back in 2021) argued the opposite saying they believed the potential for abuse of the system outweighed any benefit to public safety. At the very least, Hirsch said, she would like to explore cutting the amount of time the KPD preserves license plate data. Tierney went further calling for removal of the LPRs and cameras.

“To me, your civil liberties are important,” said Tierney. “You have a right to not be photographed, not be surveilled simply for coming to or living in the City of Kingston.”