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Credit to Author: Louise Matsakis| Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2019 16:08:17 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n The company boasts that its cameras caused a dramatic drop in crime in one Georgia county, but experts say declining crime rates are hard to attribute to any single factor.<\/p>\n In March, police in an Atlanta suburb embarked on a surveillance experiment they hoped would reduce crime in the area. Along public roads near the local Six Flags amusement park, officers from the Cobb County Police Department installed 13 solar-powered automatic license plate readers<\/a> from Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based startup on a mission to \u201celiminate non-violent crime.\u201d The company\u2019s cameras, which typically cost around $2,000 a year each to rent and operate, were loaned to Cobb County free of charge.<\/p>\n Law enforcement officials chose the area, known as Zone 2, Beat 215, because it\u2019s experienced disproportionately high amounts of property and violent crime, says Stuart VanHoozer, Cobb County\u2019s deputy police chief. During the first six months the license plate readers were installed, VanHoozer says he observed a dramatic change: The number of reported crimes like robbery and non-residential burglary dropped over 50 percent each compared to the same period the year prior. Between March and August, the department recorded 50 instances of \u201centering auto,\u201d Georgia\u2019s term for breaking and entering into a vehicle, compared with 138 over the same period in 2018. \u201cIt was not a decrease that we expected to see,\u201d says VanHoozer.<\/p>\n On the surface, it appears as though a simple fix\u2014installing relatively discrete license plate readers\u2014had an enormous positive impact. That\u2019s the narrative Flock Safety has put forward. The company proudly touted the results of the Cobb County pilot in a press release it sent to WIRED this week, and advertises on its website that it solves \u201cup to five crimes an hour<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n But experts say it\u2019s not that simple, and that establishing a causal relationship between any given variable and fluctuating crime rates is no easy task. \u201cI am not saying that the readers did not have an effect on crime\u2014it is just that we cannot attribute any reduction in crime to the readers themselves,\u201d says Alex Piquero, a professor of criminology at the University of Texas, Dallas.<\/p>\n Even police agree. \u201cTo make it very clear, we are not 100 percent positive that Flock cameras were the difference,\u201d says VanHoozer. \u201cWhat we did see, though, is an incredible decrease in crime, starting when we put these cameras down there.\u201d<\/p>\n Police departments have been using surveillance tools<\/a> like automatic license plate readers<\/a> for years. They\u2019re often supplied by technology vendors like Vigilant Solutions<\/a>, which markets them directly to law enforcement. Flock Safety\u2014a former Y Combinator<\/a> startup backed by Peter Thiel\u2019s<\/a> Founders Fund\u2014is one of several newer technology firms that are selling surveillance tech to private citizens. Josh Thomas, the head of marketing at Flock Safety, says the company generally targets groups like homeowners associations, whose members pay for the readers to be installed in their communities. Another company, Ring, which was acquired by Amazon last year, sells doorbell cameras for private homes and businesses.<\/p>\n Both companies have worked with law enforcement, and Ring\u2019s relationships with hundreds of police departments<\/a> across the country, in particular, has drawn scrutiny<\/a> from civil liberties groups and others. Advances in surveillance technology have spurred an ongoing debate over privacy and security, and whether individual tradeoffs are justified in the name of public safety. Flock and Ring sell consumers on the idea that their products have the power to not only catch criminals, but also deter them from offending in the first place. In a 2015 pilot program with the Los Angeles Police Department, Ring said the presence of its cameras reduced burglaries in neighborhoods by as much as 55 percent, a figure critics have disputed<\/a>.<\/p>\n Is there something about license plate readers you think we should know? Contact the author at louise_matsakis@wired.com<\/a> or via Signal at 347-966-3806. WIRED protects the confidentiality of its sources, but if you wish to conceal your identity, here are the instructions for using SecureDrop<\/a>. You can also mail us materials at 520 Third Street, Suite 350, San Francisco, CA 94107.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s in the interest of the jurisdiction and the manufacturer to advance the notion that this is the latest and most sophisticated technology,\u201d says Elias Silverman, professor emeritus at John Jay School of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. \u201cOne needs to take these advances with a grain of salt and acknowledge they need to be studied by others."<\/p>\n Flock\u2019s cameras are now used in over 400 communities in 35 states, and have been credited with helping police solve a series of serious cases. But the overall effect installing license plate readers has on crime rates still isn\u2019t clear, and likely can\u2019t be determined by conducting a short experiment. Some studies<\/a> indicate LPRs don\u2019t deter crime, while others have found<\/a> the devices can potentially reduce<\/a> certain types of offenses.<\/p>\n Maria Cuellar, a professor of criminology at the University of Pennsylvania who researches the use of statistics in the law, says pilots like the one in Cobb County only provide before-and-after comparisons, which alone can\u2019t prove a causal relationship. \u201cThe problem with these is that so many things could have changed between the \u2018before\u2019 period and the \u2018after\u2019 period,\u201d she says. That includes everything from the number of cars passing through the area to broader demographic changes. The study was also relatively short. \u201cWith such a small sample size in terms of time, any changes could likely be noise rather than an actual signal,\u201d says Cuellar.<\/p>\n Wider trends, too, have to be taken into account. Police say crime is down overall in Cobb County, as well as in nearby Atlanta. \u201cWe do believe that there are other things we are doing that have attributed to the general decline in crime,\u201d says VanHoozer. He notes there are also social factors that might be contributing to the drop, like low unemployment.<\/p>\n Another possibility is that Flock\u2019s license plate readers helped police apprehend a relatively small group of criminals who were responsible for the bulk of the crime in the area. In other words, rather than deterring people from committing an offense in the first place, the license plate readers may have helped apprehend repeat offenders.<\/p>\n Cops have used license plate readers for at least a decade, but the ones made by Flock Safety are arguably more powerful. They automatically catalog a vehicle\u2019s model, color, make, and any distinguishing marks, as well as the date and time they passed through the neighborhood. The cameras ping law enforcement the minute a known stolen vehicle crosses their path, a feature VanHoozer says has been particularly useful in Cobb County. The Flock LPRs are even capable of detecting people walking by, and whether they have a dog in tow.<\/p>\n There are safeguards in place for how Cobb County police can use the cameras. Flock Safety only allows footage to be retained for 30 days, and according to department policy, officers need to document a legitimate law enforcement reason and case number to access the tapes. But Flock Safety\u2019s license plate readers are also used by private individuals, who aren\u2019t subject to the same oversight. It\u2019s possible a homeowners association may use the readers to improperly spy on or surveil their neighbors, for instance.<\/p>\n Even in the hands of police, license plate data has been used for controversial purposes, like by US Customs and Immigrations Enforcement<\/a> to apprehend<\/a> undocumented immigrants. And there\u2019s always the risk the underlying law enforcement databases LPRs rely on may not be accurate. According to one estimate from the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, the readers can be wrong around 10 percent<\/a> of the time. Last year, two men driving in the Bay Area say they were pulled over and handcuffed<\/a> as police pointed guns at them, after an automatic license plate reader incorrectly identified their rental car as stolen.<\/p>\n As license plate readers are installed in more communities, citizens will need to weigh the potential privacy risks against the promise they will reduce crime in their neighborhood. They should also keep in mind that a whole host of things can impact crime rates, and while surveillance technology is an increasingly common variable, it\u2019s not the only one.<\/p>\n Is there something about license plate readers you think we should know? Contact the author at louise_matsakis@wired.com<\/a> or via Signal at 347-966-3806.<\/em><\/p>\n