HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — A case of Flock camera system misuse in Highland Heights may be a snapshot of a bigger oversight problem. An Ohio Republican Senator aims to add strict rules for Flock use statewide.
Police agencies stand by their Flock surveillance camera network that they say helps solve crimes and find missing people.
Last month, a rogue user in the Highland Heights Police Department exposed a blind spot.
“Well, I was surprised,” Highland Heights Police Chief Dennis Matejcic said.
A part-time police dispatcher searched the Flock camera database more than 20,000 times in one year, and nobody in the police department noticed.
In late August, a Washington Post reporter spotted the misuse on the website ‘Have I Been Flocked’ and notified Matejcic.
"We immediately suspended all her activities, all her accounts,” Matejcic said.
The department immediately opened an internal investigation.
One plate was searched over 5,000 times with no ties to Highland Heights police work.
“I’m sure she knows who they are, and she had her reasons for running those plates,” Matejcic said.
We don’t know her personal reasons, but this is how Matejcic said she did it.
“Well, she would list traffic infractions, and she was putting in false incident report numbers. Numbers that didn’t come back to Highland Heights,” Matejcic said.
Highland Heights is a small eastern suburb of Cleveland. One neighborhood Homeowners Association has Flock cameras, and so does the Home Depot.
The city has six cameras and two administrators for the system.
“I’m sorry to say we didn’t do anything before this happened,” Matejcic said.
The dispatcher resigned days after the chief was notified about the misuse, but he says the investigation isn’t over.
This case is one of many across the country.
Ohio State Senator Al Cutrona is calling for tight restrictions.
“We don’t want to live in a nanny state; we also don’t want to live in a surveillance state, and frankly that is what Ohio has become without any guardrails with the Flock cameras,” Cutrona said.
Right now, police in the Flock system can tap into cameras across the country. Cutrona plans to introduce a bill requiring outside agencies, including the federal government, to obtain a warrant before accessing data.
Cutrona says he’s still working on the language of the complex bill.
“Just like anything else, you can’t tap somebody’s phone without a warrant. Okay, you shouldn’t be able to access at the whim of anybody’s curiosity,” Cutrona said.
Cutrona’s legislation would mandate data deletion after 10 days unless there's an ongoing investigation.
He also wants to restrict camera placement, not near places of worship or gun stores.
“It’s scary that you can have the government and you can have law enforcement or you can have frankly anybody for that matter who has a Flock camera who can literally look and see a mosaic of your life,” Cutrona said.
Under the proposed legislation, anyone caught using Flock for personal reasons would be charged with a felony.
“There needs to be an ongoing investigation. There needs to be a reason for tracking said person; you can’t just track them because it’s your ex-girlfriend or your brother-in-law,” Cutrona said.
Matejcic believes misusing the Flock system should be a criminal offense.
He says two people connected to the misuse discovered last month contacted his department after checking if they’ve been flocked.
One of them has filed a police report.
“They used that website, so yeah, they’re concerned about stalking issues, things like that,” Matejcic said.
Highland Heights has since adopted a specific license plate reader policy and will do mandatory monthly audits of its users.
"I want to say that we’re moving forward as a result of what happened and we’re going to be proactive to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Well, it wouldn’t go on as long as it did; right, we would catch it,” Matejcic said.
Cutrona says there needs to be self-auditing by agencies but also wants to bring in the Ohio Attorney General’s office for an audit process.
“I’m actually working with the attorney general of Ohio to be able to come up with the best policy that’s functional but also ensures that there is a good audit process and perhaps that also means bringing in the state auditor in this capacity,” Cutrona said.
