(Beaver Dam) The Beaver Dam Police Department gave a presentation to the common council at their meeting this week on the use of flock cameras. More commonly known as automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), these cameras are set up at various roadways and streets throughout the county and take photos of every vehicle and the license plate that goes with them. Beaver Dam Police Detective Dan Kuhnz says there are currently 12 flock cameras established around the city.
“They kind of look just like a camera sitting on a pole with a little solar-powered panel that’s on it…and what that’s doing is it’s reading all the plates that are going past it and it reads the rear of the license plate,” says Kuhnz. “And the reason for that is because some vehicles come from out of state that aren’t required to have front plates…so, we get the rear of the license plate. What that does is it converts that image into an alphanumeric searchable image for us in law enforcement.”
Law enforcement will then run those plates through a nationwide system that checks to see if a vehicle is stolen, wanted for a crime, or if it is associated with a missing person or a juvenile. Kuhnz says that database is controlled by flock and law enforcement agencies, and other groups like Home Owners Associations, have access to it.
The detective outlined for the council what flock cameras are not.
“You might get a question, ‘the police are out there…they’re trying to make their quota by the end of the month’…first of all quotas are illegal…second of all they’re not traffic cameras so they’re not automatically reading a license plate or reading a vehicle as it goes by,” says Kuhnz. “It’s not facial recognition…it’s not big brother looking at who you are, what your face looks like, who’s in the vehicle. We have no idea who’s in the car. It’s not in and of itself probable cause to stop the vehicle.”
Kuhnz describes them as “dumb cameras” with “smart software” on the backend. He adds that law enforcement must have a valid reason to search the database.
“If I’m doing an investigation into something…this is one of a hundred but we get a retail theft…I may want to go into the system and search it…I have to enter my Beaver Dam police report number into the search reason and then I can search the database,” says Kuhnz. “So, it has to be tied to an investigation. And the reason is that because on the backend…as an administrator of the system I need to audit the searches.”
The council did float the idea of having an oversight board to review the department’s audits, likely the police and fire commission. Kuhnz says he supports the idea. He notes that since June of 2022 flock cameras have been a vital part of over 64 investigations ranging from attempted homicide, stolen vehicles, hit and runs, and check fraud.
