GREER, S.C. — Greer city leaders heard a police review of Flock license plate cameras at a council workshop Tuesday, Nov. 10, as the 90-day suspension of the system comes to an end. No vote was taken. A public hearing and council decision are set for Nov. 24.
The city paused its Flock contract in late August to weigh how well the automated license plate readers work, along with training, privacy worries and what the technology offers. Police Chief Matt Hamby walked council through what the department found during the pause.
Hamby told council the department uses the readers in three main ways: searching for a full or partial plate or a vehicle description after a crime, flagging wanted or stolen vehicles, and keeping a local hot list of vehicles tied to a string of crimes. He cited cases the cameras helped crack, including a missing person search, a reckless driving incident on U.S. 29 and a vehicle linked to 18 shoplifting cases in the city that led to an arrest.
The chief said residents who raise concerns should not be brushed aside and that the department must keep clear safeguards and show the cameras serve legitimate purposes. He described the system as an investigative tool, not a source of independent enforcement. A transparency portal is in development that would show how many cameras the city operates and how many searches are run every 30 days.
Council members pressed on privacy. Hamby said he knew of no case in Greer where someone was misidentified, and that the Flock system has no function for looking up a vehicle owner; that information sits in a separate database police have used for decades.
Privacy has been a flashpoint locally since July, when two members of the Greer police force lost their jobs over misuse of the cameras. Should council end the program, the city would be added to a growing roster of places that have dropped Flock.
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