County purchasing more ‘Flock’ cameras for highway surveillance

A Flock Safety license plate camera is shown in a neighborhood setting. Photo provided

COLUMBUS, Ind. — Bartholomew County has agreed to purchase five additional Flock cameras that use artificial intelligence to read and record license plate numbers of vehicles moving along major local highways.

The decision to invest $27,400 into the five cameras comes 10 months after the Columbus Police Department began testing eight of the high-tech license plate readers. While CPD initially purchased only four of the cameras after the tests concluded in March, spokesman Lt. Matt Harris said his department intends to purchase six more cameras in the near future.

Made by the Atlanta, Georgia-based Flock Safety Company, the devices are capable of capturing still images of every vehicle within its view even if it’s moving 100 miles per hour day or night, the company states. The images are uploaded to a cloud server, and police are alerted when a vehicle or car owner has been flagged for suspected illegal activity. The cameras are also configured to alert officers to vehicles associated with a missing person.

Funds for the purchase will come from drug forfeiture money, according to Capt. Chris Roberts, commander of the Detectives Bureau of the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department. However, the new contract with Flock Safety will only be valid if the company agrees to not place an automatic renewal on the agreement, the county commissioners said Monday.

To date, the cameras have given local officers information that have enabled them to make quite a few drug arrests, recover stolen vehicles and apprehend those being sought on arrest warrants, Roberts said.

For more on this story, see Wednesday’s Republic.