During the early morning hours of Monday, September 6, 2021 the Fairfield Police Department received a call from a victim of a catalytic converter theft that just occurred in the 4900 block of Ridgefield Way. Responding officers were greeted by neighbors in the area who witnessed the suspects driving down their street and stopping near several different vehicles in the early morning hours. Neighbors were also able to share additional information with our officers that depicted the suspect allegedly tampering with a Toyota Prius, and placing items into the suspect’s vehicle.
With the details from observant neighbors, officers were able to enter the suspect’s vehicle description and license plate information into our City FLOCK camera system. Within an hour, officers located the vehicle parked in 1900 block of W. Texas St. Officers arrested three suspects and located 2 catalytic converters along with the tools used to steal them. 38-year-old Praneel Chandra, 41-year-old Amar Singh and 42-year-old Ranjesh Singh from Sacramento were subsequently booked into the Solano county jail on numerous felony charges related to the theft of the catalytic converters.
What is Flock Safety technology?
The Fairfield Police Department uses Flock Safety cameras to capture objective evidence without compromising on individual privacy. Fairfield PD utilizes retroactive searches to solve crimes after they've occurred. Additionally, Fairfield PD utilizes real time alerting of hotlist vehicles to capture wanted criminals.
How do License plate readers help solve crime? Seven out of every 10 crimes are committed with a vehicle. License plate numbers give law enforcement the objective, actionable leads needed to solve the investigation. Using LPR cameras, detectives can pinpoint the suspect’s last known location which narrows down the search radius. Flock Safety LPR cameras go beyond capturing license plates. Unlike traditional license plate readers, the unique Vehicle Fingerprint™ technology accelerates investigations by allowing users to filter their search based on the vehicle’s specific characteristics, including body type, make, color, and more. This is key in producing an investigative lead for law enforcement when a suspect vehicle has no visible plates.
How does Flock Safety protect citizen privacy?
Flock Safety has strict measures in place to protect resident privacy. Flock Safety believes that we can successfully reduce crime while protecting and preserving privacy. Here are a few of the ways Flock Safety have ethically-engineered their suite of products to ensure privacy protection: All data is stored for only 30 days (or in adherence with local laws). The police department will own all of the data — Flock will never share or sell data with third parties. The police
department is the only one to determine who has access to the footage.
Are Flock Safety Cameras tied to any personal identifiable information?
No, the camera takes pictures of the vehicle while across refencing the license plate through the Stolen Vehicle System and Flock Safety Hot List. A second search in the California Department of Motor Vehicles database must be conducted by an officer in order to identify the registered owner of the vehicle. Such a search requires reasonable suspicion as an officer must have a right to know and a need to know prior to conducting such a search.
What is required for an officer to conduct a data search in the Flock Safety Portal?
Any time an officer conducts a search in the Flock Safety portal, they will be required to enter an event number or case number per department policy. Additionally, the officer will have to give a reason for why they are conducting the search. Each individual officer will have their own login, so we will be able to audit each of the officer’s activities as they go through the portal.
How will officer be alerted to a stolen vehicle?
Every officer will have their own login for the Flock Safety portal. At the beginning of the officer’s shift, they will log into the Flock Safety portal utilizing their Mobile Dispatch Terminal (MDT) inside their vehicle. The Flock Safety portal will be running in the background on their computer, when an alert is indicated, the alert will show on the officer’s screen. Additionally, our dispatchers will have their own logins so our dispatchers will also the alerts, which will allow them to start checking the appropriate systems to ensure the vehicle is still wanted. Is an alert alone sufficient for an officer to stop the vehicle? No, per policy, the officer must verify the vehicle in the photo is the correct vehicle and they must also verify the vehicle was still wanted through dispatch or utilizing their MDT.
How will you address cybersecurity related to the cameras?
The cameras use cellular signals and there I is no possible incoming connection to the camera. The cameras use ADF-256 encryption protocols, so any data that is actually on the camera itself is fully encrypted at all times. The data is encrypted in transit when it is being sent to the cloud and Amazon AWS government cloud storage will be used and all data is encrypted at rest in the cloud.
Will Flock Safety cameras be used for traffic or immigration enforcement?
Simply put, no! Per the American Values Act, we will not share any of the data with any federal immigration agencies at all. Additionally, the technology for either traffic or immigration enforcement is not built into the solution. This is by design based on the fundamental beliefs of Flock Safety. The company is guided by their founding principle that it is possible to build technology that is effective for law enforcement to help solve and prevent crimes, while at the same time protecting the average person's privacy and rights.
