Central Florida agencies pull Flock cameras after state orders removal from highways

Flock cameras are disappearing in central Florida. Those controversial cameras that read license plates and tonight there is a full-blown backlash. The state ordering them to be turned off on highways and state roads. And as a result, some communities are now canceling their contracts as well and others are demanding answers. We have live team coverage for you tonight from a city council meeting in Oviedo where flock is front and center to other areas where leaders are weighing what comes next. Thanks for joining us on this Monday evening. I'm Luann Sorrell. I'm Jack Royer. This flock fallout started earlier today after the Department of Transportation sent out a memo ordering the cameras to be removed from state roadways within 30 days. Now communities are rethinking them and fast. We begin tonight with Fox 35's Chancellor Wynn. And Chancellor, you're tracking the wave of communities saying no to flock tonight. That's right. Now sheriffs are falling in line with this decision even if they do not entirely agree with it. The Florida Department of Transportation making this decision to mandate that all automated license plate readers be shut down on state roads after concerns about the abuse of the data and more concerns around people's personal privacy. The governor basically put us out of business. A majority of our cameras are on state roads. Belusha County Sheriff Mike Chitwood sounding off after a new Florida Department of Transportation mandate backed by Governor Ron DeSantis requiring agencies to remove license plate cameras from state roads. DeSantis is pushing for harsher penalties to curb the abuse of collected data pointing to recent arrests of a Sumter County detective and a Haines City police officer accused of using the database to stalk exes and relatives. DeSantis says he wants new legislation to protect privacy, warning against turning Florida into a digital surveillance state. You wanna get in your car and you wanna go down to Buc-ee's in St. Augustine, it's really none of the government's damn business if you're doing that, right? I mean, like, let's just be clear. Other agencies are also pulling their cameras including Brevard County. While Sheriff Wayne Ivey highlights positive case results from the technology, he acknowledges the growing privacy concerns. Our policy strictly prohibited the cameras from being utilized for traffic enforcement and required inquiries be related to criminal cases or missing or endangered persons. Even though our agency had strong policies in place to protect our citizens' right to privacy, I still understand the concern and more importantly, the need for strict policies and laws. In response, Flock released a statement reading in part, rather than banning a critical public safety tool, we support thoughtful legislation and strong privacy, transparency and accountability guardrails that ensure technology is used responsibly while preserving law enforcement's ability to use effective tools to keep people safe. Despite the friction, Sheriff Chitwood says, the cameras make Volusia County safer and he believes there is room for compromise. How do we corral this technology to alleviate privacy concerns on this hand and to make sure that technology is used responsibly to catch the bad guy? I don't think it's that hard. Now, tomorrow, commissioners in Lake County are going to be discussing license plate meters specifically in their county. We're gonna have more about that coming up at 11 o'clock. Reporting live, I'm Chancellor Nguyen, Fox 35 News. Chancellor, thank you. And if you're wondering if your county is no longer using Flock cameras, here's a map for you tonight of the specific spots that are taking them down across Central Florida, suspending their use. To name a few, Brevard, Seminole, Volusia Counties, along with the cities of Edgewater, Sanford and Titusville, all following suit. And during Oviedo City Council meeting tonight, leaders decided to remove all of their Flock cameras. Fox 35's Manny Martinez is live in Oviedo right now. So Manny, when will these cameras come down or be turned off? Well, Luanne, at this point, exactly when is unclear, but both the mayor and the police chief said it could be as soon as tomorrow. Those cameras were put up just months ago in February. The council's decision came tonight after hearing directly from a representative from Flock and the police chief. And it seems that what the council members heard was not enough to quell their concerns. All eight of Oviedo's Flock license plate reading cameras will soon be history. Does it remove a tool? Absolutely. But does it remove a lot of concerns? Yes, to that as well. At the top of the list of concerns expressed by council members was the sharing of gathered data with other police departments and the lack of explicit safeguards to ensure other law enforcement agencies follow Oviedo's same strict usage rules with that data. An overwhelming majority of the standing room only crowd at Monday's meeting seemed to be against the cameras. Flock and systems like it indiscriminately log, track and catalog everyone driving through your streets, treating all free citizens as potential suspects. Once this infrastructure becomes embedded, it's here to stay. So we have to stop it now. Even James Fishback was here. He ran for the Republican nomination for governor on an anti-Flock platform. When George Orwell wrote 1984, he wrote it as a warning, not as an instruction manual. And it seems we have not obeyed that advice. Public support for the cameras came from the city's former police chief. Hypothetically, you have a loved one who's brutally injured or a child that's kidnapped. How fast do you want the police to respond? They all spoke before a representative from Flock Safety shared facts and answered questions from council members. There's no facial recognition on these cameras. The LPR system doesn't allow for searching for people, pets or clothing. It doesn't connect to the DMV. There's no personal information of the driver. The city leased its cameras and council had to decide by the end of September whether to pay for another year. Ultimately, they took it a step further with the removal order, something that won't have a drastic impact on how the city's police department operates, according to Chief Dale Coleman. It's not gonna be a huge shift. It just will be a investigative tool that we won't have access to. But we'll go back to doing police work like we've always done it. So this all means that Oviedo will be paying for a month's worth of cameras that they won't be getting any data from, a sunken cost. But the data that is gathered until those cameras are turned off or removed will still be accessible by the police department and any others that it shares the data with for 30 days or the end of the contract at the end of September, whichever comes first. Live in Oviedo, Manny Martinez, Fox 35 News. Manny, thank you. And these flaw camera changes are happening right now, minute by minute. Stick with us live here on the air or you can download the Fox Local app to stay up to date.