Coralville community members speak out against proposal to add license plate reader cameras

CORALVILLE — Around a dozen community members showed up for public comment at the Coralville City Council meeting Tuesday night to share their concerns about resident privacy should the city begin using license plate reader cameras.

The cameras are designed to give law enforcement agencies alerts when a vehicle identified through an Amber or Silver alert — issued to help authorities find missing children and adults — is detected. The cameras also save license plate numbers and other information about vehicles that pass by, running that information through a database of arrest warrants and missing vehicle reports.

The Coralville City Council, during a work session on June 24, heard from Police Chief Kyle Nicholson and Trevor Chandler, director of public affairs for Flock Safety — the camera vendor — about the proposal to add the cameras in Coralville.

Nicholson told the council cameras would be placed in Coralville at First Avenue near Interstate 80, First Avenue near Highway 6, and Coral Ridge Avenue near Highway 6. He said Flock cameras already are in use at Coral Ridge Mall and Lowe’s in Coralville.

The city has budgeted $19,000 for the cameras.

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Multiple people who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting referenced ACLU of Iowa’s opposition to Flock cameras and other license plate readers. The organization says the problem with the cameras is they enable the creation of “databases with location information on every motorist who encounters the system, not just those whom the government suspects of criminal activity.”

“They are increasingly becoming a tool for mass location tracking and surveillance across the country under ordinary circumstances,” Coralville resident Tara McGovern said Tuesday. “(Automatic license plate readers) pose a significant threat to privacy, since amassing data on vehicle locations can reveal very private details about our lives, like our doctor's visits, where we sleep at night, where we choose to spend our time …”

The cameras are not traffic enforcement devices and are not used to issue red-light or speed violations. However, the cameras may report a violation in order to dispatch an officer or provide vehicle information to a neighboring jurisdiction, something community members expressed concerns about.

Flock Safety has said its cameras are meant to capture only license plates and vehicle characteristics, not photos of the occupants.

License plate reading cameras are becoming more popular across the state. The University of Iowa police department installed 28 of them in 2023. Last year, Marshalltown installed 32, and North Liberty installed 12. Cedar Rapids has 70 license plate reading cameras. All of those cities bought their cameras through Flock Safety.

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Cedar Rapids has set up an online transparency portal that lists the city’s camera policies — what the cameras can and cannot be used to do — as well as a list of the 50 agencies that have access to Cedar Rapids camera data. The site also includes the number of vehicles detected, hotlist hits and searches for the previous 30 days.

The camera purchase wasn’t on Tuesday’s Coralville City Council agenda. When public comment ended, members of the city council thanked community members for sharing their concerns. They said they’ll take those opinions into account as they decide whether to move forward with the cameras.

“It is very important to have the engagement from our citizens, because we are here to represent you, so anytime that we need more information to inform our vote, I would encourage people to show up and speak up as well,” said council member Hai Hyunh.

Comments: megan.woolard@thegazette.com

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