Denver Mayor Mike Johnston proposed a contract with a new provider of license plate-reading cameras on Tuesday, saying it will come with added precautions as the city ends its controversial arrangement with Flock Safety.
After facing months of public criticism over the city’s relationship with Flock, the mayor’s office is proposing a new contract with Axon, which already provides other technology for the Denver Police Department.
Over the past year, hundreds of Denverites had criticized Johnston for repeatedly extending the city’s contract with Flock despite reports that to aid in President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign.
The company has also faced scrutiny of its nationwide camera system, which many critics say is essentially a mass-surveillance network ripe for abuse.
“We feel like we heard from Denverites and we got feedback. And we have spent the last nine months listening to the community, working with City Council, working with privacy experts … and law enforcement on what people wanted from a system that would meet everyone’s concerns,” Johnson said in an exclusive interview ahead of the announcement with The Denver Post.
When asked about his views on Flock, Johnston said his concerns had grown “over the course of the process” of working with the company and that, ultimately, it was “not the right fit.”
“Itap not whether I like them or dislike them. Itap a matter of whether they can deliver the service that we best need,” he said.
The proposed contract with Axon would have some differences with the Flock arrangement, he said. Axon doesn’t have a national database of any kind for local or federal law enforcement agencies to tap into. The new deal will also have a shorter retention policy for the photos the cameras snap — 21 days instead of 30 days under Flock.
“Axon has the single highest level of security protections,” Johnston said, while talking about all the companies that submitted bids. “Itap essentially the same standard used for storing people’s personal medical information.”
In coming weeks, council members — some of whom have publicly raised alarm bells about Flock — will consider the new contract.
“I’m cautiously optimistic, but the same concerns exist,” Councilwoman Flor Alvidrez said. “The one I’m most concerned about is collecting people‘s data before they have committed (or) been suspected of or a party to any crime. Why track cars that haven’t been reported stolen? As long as we collect the superfluous data, it can be subpoenaed.”
Johnston says Axon will use the same database that it uses for Denver police officers’ body-worn camera footage. The photos its new cameras take will also focus only on vehicles and license plates, he said — not people’s faces. The company has agreed not to give ICE access to the data.
“I understand there are some people who want no cameras at all,” Johnston said. “The reality is, my job is both to protect civil liberties and to protect folks from crime, and we have to find a middle ground on that.”
DPD used license plate data in about 40% of its homicide investigations last year and in about a third of the non-fatal shooting investigations, according to a city news release about the new contract. The cameras have also played a role in the recovery of more than 400 stolen cars.
In a statement Tuesday, a spokesperson for Flock said the company was proud of the work it has done in Colorado, including helping solve six recent cases of child abductions.
“We hope to work with the City of Denver and DPD again in the future,” Paris Lewbel said. “In the meantime, we continue to serve more than a hundred cities across Colorado helping solve crimes and find missing persons.”
Johnston said that in his conversations with residents, “very few to nearly none” of them said they didn’t want the city using cameras of any kind.
Denver also plans to stop sharing the camera data with any other police departments, Johnston said. Once the new system is in place, the city will begin inviting certain agencies in the surrounding area to use the data if they agree to set rules.
The city’s latest contract with Flock, which the mayor’s office unilaterally signed in October without council approval, will end March 31. The Axon contract, which will be for one year and cost $150,000, would begin immediately after.
Axon would have to replace Flock’s cameras as part of the process. There will likely be fewer cameras under the new system, said Jon Ewing, a city spokesman.
While the new contract’s value will be below the $500,000 threshold that requires council approval, Johnston said his team would bring it through the council approval process anyway “to be extra transparent and extra collaborative.”
The council unanimously rejected a two-year contract with Flock last May, partly because the mayor’s office requested that it do so after hearing backlash from council members and the public. Johnston’s administration then twice extended the contract without council approval.
Denver Auditor Tim O’Brien that he wouldn’t countersign the latest contract because, he said, it created a “risk of liability” for the city.
Under the latest extension, Johnston’s administration added new requirements to Flock’s contract that it said were intended to protect sensitive data.
The state legislature is now considering a bill that would block government agencies from using license plate data without a warrant.
