As cities around the country – Fort Collins among the latest – pull contracts with Flock Safety over privacy concerns, Durango City Council is instead suggesting more transparency about use of Flock cameras.
Since at least late 2024, some residents have criticized the city’s use of artificial intelligence-powered Flock cameras because of their capability to share photos and vehicle information called “fingerprints” with law enforcement agencies across the country.
Members of DeFlock Durango, warning the cameras make up a “mass surveillance” network ripe for abuse, have scrutinized DPD Flock data made public.
Some residents have demanded the city cancel its contract with Flock Safety and take the cameras down. Although City Council has resisted those calls, it has acknowledged residents’ concerns.
Councilors requested monthly reports about Durango Police Department’s use of Flock cameras, including how many vehicles are logged, what offenses Flock searches have pertained to and what outcomes the technology has resulted in.
On Tuesday, Police Chief Brice Current delivered the first monthly report. It listed the most to least frequent searches by officers, the total number of vehicles read by cameras in Durango across a 24-hour period, and the number of custom and official “hotlist” hits – automated flags that occur when a camera detects a vehicle placed on a law enforcement watch list.
Councilors asked for more information in future reports. Some residents opposed to Flock cameras were less than thrilled with the results.
DPD conducted 794 Flock searches from May 10 through June 9 for vehicle hits related to a variety of offenses varying in severity. By far, the most common search by officers was related to motor vehicle theft or stolen vehicles at 292 searches.
The second most frequent search was related to drugs and narcotics with 73 searches. The third most frequent search concerned car crashes and hit-and-runs with 51 searches.
Arson, larceny and theft, child abuse and neglect, assault and battery, and welfare checks were among 27 total search categories DPD used over the approximately one-month period.
DPD’s Flock cameras detected 315,798 unique vehicles a total of 2.46 million times over the same one-month period.
As of Tuesday, the cameras had captured vehicles nearly 12.6 million times since Jan. 1, according to the report.
From May 10 to June 9, DPD’s Flock network had 2,148 custom and official hotlist hits combined. Of those, DPD’s custom hotlists received 803 alerts while official hotlists belonging to the National Crime Information Center and the Colorado Crime Information Center accounted for 1,060.
While “Sex Offender” had the most alerts out of specific alert types with 363 hits, DPD’s own “Custom Hotlist Alert” surpassedthat at 803 hits.
Councilors asked for the custom hotlist alerts to be broken down into subclassifications in future reports.
“One of the big concerns with a lot of the people that wanted to de-Flock was with the transparency and why we’re using this system,” Mayor Dave Woodruff said. “Whenever you say ‘custom,’ it could be anything, right?”
DPD attributed 24 arrests and eight vehicle recoveries since 2024 to Flock cameras, according to the “outcomes” section of Current’s report.
Current said it is hard to determine what outcomes are the result of what tools, and often it’s a mix of factors that lead to arrests.
“There’s a lot of different reasons we catch people or are able to arrest people or prosecute people,” he said. “It could be the drone as a first responder program, it could be a mix of several things, and we don’t have the databases.”
He said new softwares and AI systems the police department is implementing this year should make measuring the effectiveness of police tools easier.
Some residents who attended the City Council meeting on Tuesday, however, were unimpressed.
“Are we serious with these numbers?” said a resident who identified himself as Jack C. in a public comment. “… In their own highlight reel, DPD has laid out in black ink just how much a waste of money this horror show has been,” he said.
He said DPD has spent nearly $300,000 through the Flock contract and staff time on the cameras, and that more than 99% of searches of Durango’s Flock network are conducted by outside agencies.
DPD spokeswoman Amanda Garrison told The Durango Herald the agency is unclear how Jack arrived at his estimate.
She said the city has 13 fixed Flock cameras and one mobile camera that is currently not active. Each Flock camera costs $3,000 per year in addition to a one-time installation cost, totaling a cost of $42,000 annually not considering installations.
“You cannot quantify the value of preventing a homicide or a kidnapping, which we have been able to do using the FLOCK Safety system,” she said.
She said the outcomes report also did not account for 42 recovered stolen vehicles out of 43 reported stolen vehicles last year because the system is not set up to track them yet.
The Herald reported last year DPD had 21 cameras installed at various points across the city of Durango, based on a presentation by Current and an online transparency portal where that number was stated.
On Thursday, Garrison said that number included equipment associated with a mobile camera trailer and other devices.
“The previous transparency portal entry was removed because the device count created confusion rather than improving transparency,” she said.
Searches of Durango’s Flock network by agencies across the nation totaled 516,362 for the month of May, higher than Jack’s estimate, Garrison said. But that doesn’t mean DPD data was returned, viewed or used in all of those searches.
“It only reflects the number of searches in which DPD’s data was available for querying,” she said, adding law enforcement agencies with 287(g) cooperation agreements with federal immigration officials have been removed from DPD’s sharing capabilities. DPD audits and denies agencies access on a weekly basis.
DPD shares Flock data with 648 agencies and receives data from more than 2,000 agencies, Current said on Tuesday.
Councilors said the reports process will evolve as they figure out how to improve transparency with regard to how DPD and other agencies are using the Flock network in Durango.
Councilor Kip Koso said the biggest concern will continue to be how other jurisdictions are accessing DPD’s data.
“Do we have an understanding of why they’re doing it and are they doing it in a responsible way? I think we’re doing a pretty good job here. I’m more worried about the other jurisdictions,” he said.
Another public commenter, Colin Roy-Ehri, said he agreed with councilors there. He commended DPD for its “astute and ethical use” of Flock searches and law enforcement, but outside agencies should not be allowed access to DPD’s Flock network.
“I share the council’s concern for the external hotlists, custom hotlists and external searches. How many hotlists are even active? Are we on them? Who is targeted? And are AI-generated lists based on political and ethnic prejudice?”
cburney@durangoherald.com
