(Spencer)– City officials in Spencer say social media posts indicating so-called “flock” cameras, or license plate readers, have been installed in the city’s downtown area are false. City Manager Kevin Robinson told the city council Monday some are apparently mistakenly associating them with other cameras present on Grand Avenue…
“I want to be very clear. There are zero Flock cameras operating inside the city of Spencer. There are zero Flock cameras installed. We have verified this with the vendor. The people see the cameras on the light poles on Grand Avenue downtown. Those serve two primary functions. One, we have a system that reads the flow of traffic and essentially feeds itself the flow information so it gets smarter and the Emergency Management Services can also interact with those cameras, but they are not Flock cameras.”
He says people are seeing those cameras and falsely reporting them as flock cameras online…
“What has happened is people have got on these websites and stated there are Flock cameras in Spencer. These websites do not have a way for us to debunk that or prove that they’re not and get them removed. And so those data bases will continue to show that we have them. We do not have them. There are no Flock cameras in Spencer.”
There has been considerable controversy in cities where those cameras ARE present, with concerns over invasion of privacy.
