Resident urges council to reconsider Flock Safety ALPR use, alleging data retention and sale of analytics

At the public-comment portion of the Sept. 8 meeting, Bryan resident Ivan Sverczyk (District 5) urged the council to scrutinize automatic license-plate reader (ALPR) systems provided by Flock Safety.

Sverczyk argued that, while Flock's terms emphasize that "they do not own and shall not sell customer data," the company retains derivative analyses and databases that can be marketed to other organizations. "They sell a service and a database," he said. "As citizens, our pictures and movements are being recorded and sold by Flock Safety. We are the product, and we have not consented to mass surveillance."

Sverczyk also cited a Sheboygan, Wisconsin incident in which the police department canceled its Flock contract after a salesman offered multi-year traffic-data products; he warned the city that analytic outputs (movement patterns, vehicle types, and speeds) may be retained and offered beyond the original retention limits claimed in local contracts.

The comment was delivered as a civic appeal; no immediate council action was recorded in the meeting minutes. Council did not take up a motion on ALPR policy during the session; the speaker requested further attention to the topic going forward.