TOWN OF MANLIUS – The town of Manlius will not be moving forward with an overhead surveillance camera in the village of Fayetteville.
Last month Police Chief Mike Crowell asked the town board to approve an agreement for a Flock camera, which records license plates and vehicle types in passing traffic. It would have been installed on Route 5 in Fayetteville, the town’s busiest road. The camera would have been funded by a grant and there would have been no cost to the town.
The department is already collecting license plate data through six of Manlius’ police cars, which are outfitted with equipment that collects the data.
“It’s something that every other agency in Onondaga County has been doing for years,” he told the board last month.
At issue is how the data from the Flock camera would be used and who has access to it.
The data the town currently collects is owned by the town and the town retains control of who has access to it. The Flock agreement states that the data would be owned by the town, but Flock would retain access to it and the right to distribute the data to other agencies.
“This is surveillance on a massive scale,” said Councilor Elaine Denton. “I oppose expanding surveillance of town residents.”
Denton also called on the town to publish its policy related to license plate data collection on the town website so residents are aware that license plate data is being collected by cameras on TMPD patrol cars.
Supervisor John Deer asked the board for a motion to accept the Flock agreement, and when none came, the issue was settled.
“The data we currently have we kind of have full dominion over, and the FLOCK agreement, while it may seem fairly standard for this type of technology, what I heard from the board is that they are a little less comfortable having another third-party company take ownership of that data,” Deer said.
In other news
Crowell did have some good news for the town board last week.
Manlius, like many law enforcement agencies in the area, has had a very difficult time finding qualified candidates, but Crowell reported last week that he has found candidates for three of the four vacancies on the force. Two of the candidates were former members of the department’s Explorer Post.
The three prospective police officers will attend police academy beginning in December.