The City Directors of Siloam Springs have indefinitely paused the deployment of automated license plate readers (LPR) used for traffic enforcement. On Tuesday, the board voted to table an ordinance (Ordinance 2834) that would have renewed the city’s contract with Flock Safety, the leading provider of license plate recognition software in the United States. The motion calls for the cameras to be deactivated until the city’s legal counsel determines the proper parameters for liability and data privacy.
This decision marks a turn in local traffic policy, stopping the use of Flock Safety units that had been operational primarily within the Barker Education Park area. The six devices, often described as white bullhorns or spheres, utilize built-in infrared cameras to capture license plates night or day. While the city staff recommended moving forward with the renewal to maintain coverage during the school year, several directors expressed hesitation regarding the retention of that data and the software’s third-party access mechanisms.
Flock Safety’s business model has faced scrutiny nationwide due to the company selling camera access to third parties, including counter-terrorism groups, through its “Privin” software API. This architecture allows data collected by city-owned hardware to leave local servers and be accessed by entities outside of the Siloam Springs municipal government. During Tuesday’s meeting, concerns were raised about whether the current agreement gave the city sufficient control over their own surveillance footage. The directors decided that renewing the contract without adjusting the terms to remove these privacy risks was not an option.
Under the proposed renewal—which would have likely extended the term for one year—the city was set to pay a vendor to store data for 18 months. Flock typically retains license plate images and location data for this duration before anonymizing and deleting the information. However, the directors voted to disrupt that process. By tabling the ordinance, the cameras will be turned off immediately, stopping both the active monitoring of the park entrances and the storage of the historical footage.
Local governance in Northwest Arkansas has seen these systems expand rapidly over the last decade. While Springdale, Rogers, and Fayetteville utilize Flock Safety with independent contracts that secure ownership of the data, the administrative setup in Siloam Springs left room for interpretation regarding oversight. Director Ben Fitzhugh noted during the discussion that the fear—or perception—of being monitored
Source: 5News KFSM
