Kalamazoo Public Safety reported the results of its license plate reader audit to the Citizens Public Safety Review and Appeal Board Tuesday.
Inspector Charles Mason presented the audit for July, August and September. He said the department updated its license plate reader policy this summer to require monthly audits. The board did not meet in September, so three months were presented together.
Mason said the department’s Flock network is shared with a limited set of other law enforcement agencies, that the list did not change during the audit period, and that no other agency can view or search the network.
He said the system’s search menu offers a limited set of offense types, which must be entered to run a search. According to Mason, those options do not allow searches that go against policy, such as immigration-related searches. He also said Michigan State Police searches on the statewide Flock network automatically include Kalamazoo’s network.
The system automatically flags certain search behaviors for review. Mason said the flags include searches on the same plate more than 30 days apart, the same plate searched under different case numbers, and plates searched by only one user. He said he reviewed each flagged search and found all of them within policy. In response to board questions, he said the most common flags came from long-running investigations, such as those by the detective bureau.
The audit also found a data problem. Mason said some search reasons were not showing in the publicly downloadable search log. The department reported the issue to its vendors, who are working on a fix. In the meantime, the department disconnected the link between two platforms so every entry in the log shows a reason.
The department’s Flock transparency portal, linked from its website, shows statistics, answers to common questions and the past 30 days of searches. Mason said it will use largely the same audit format in future reports.
A board member also asked that the board’s review of the Flock policy be added to an upcoming agenda. Board members were told it would be added.
