By Kevin Hendricks, The Paper.
Familiar faces in Rio Rancho’s fight over Flock Safety cameras were back before the governing body Sept. 10, pressing the council to end the program — this time backing up their case with lawsuits and data-misuse incidents they said happened in other states. City Manager Matt Geisel again pointed residents to the city’s ALPR information page.
Joaquin Montoya, again speaking for DeFlock New Mexico, cited figures he attributed to Flock Safety’s own published data, saying a claimed 93% accuracy rate works out to roughly 1.4 billion misreads a month out of a claimed 20 billion monthly scans nationally. “Every stop is a lawsuit waiting to happen,” Montoya said. He also referenced settlements in Colorado, paid after officers detained a family over a mismatched plate, and a data-sharing case in California that he said led to thousands of unauthorized searches, some allegedly tied to immigration enforcement.
Resident Casey Robinson framed his objection differently, arguing any surveillance system carries risk once the data exists regardless of intent, citing his family’s history with government recordkeeping in Europe and raising concerns about private companies’ handling of location data. He closed by paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin on trading liberty for safety.
Resident Michael Farrell renewed his challenge to Mayor Paul Wymer’s suggestion at the Aug. 27 meeting that a quiet majority of residents supports the cameras, arguing the city’s past privacy concerns about data brokers and body-camera footage should apply equally to its own camera network. “If that silent majority really supports all of this, we’d all love to finally meet the flockers,” Farrell said.
As the meeting closed, Geisel told the council the city has continued fielding “a lot of conversations” about license plate readers since police walked the governing body through the program at an August work session. He said the presentation remains posted on the city’s website. “We put it out there on purpose to share it with the public,” Geisel said, adding residents can search “Rio Rancho license plate readers” to find it.
More information
- City’s ALPR information page: rrnm.gov/5071/Automated-License-Plate-Readers
- Governing body public comment rules: 2 minutes per speaker, 2-hour cap per meeting
- Contact your councilor: rrnm.gov/29/Governing-Body