HERNANDO COUNTY, Fla. – Cameras are everywhere, and privacy is not expected when you are outside and in a public area. However, when the government uses ‘spy cameras’ to track your every move, people say it violates their right to privacy. That’s exactly what Hernando County Commissioner Steve Champion said during a recent Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) meeting regarding the use of surveillance cameras by the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office.
The issue first came to light in April of this year when R News received a tip that Sheriff Al Nienhuis emailed the BOCC demanding they conceal his clandestine operation involving the use of the Flock Surveillance cameras from the public. When R News requested a copy of the email, the entire document was redacted except for the recipients’ names.
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Several Flock cameras are currently erected along Hernando County roadways in several locations, most of which are near high crime areas. But some say he is unjustly targeting neighborhoods with a high population of minorities and low-income families. R News discovered at least one camera at the intersection of Spring Hill Drive and Deltona Blvd, which happens to be near four separate access points to low-income apartment complexes on Omaha Circle.
There are at least seven cameras in and around the Hill ‘n Dale community, which also has a high minority population. You cannot access Hill ‘n Dale without the Sheriff’s Office knowing who you are and when you are coming and going.
In a statement to the Tampa Free Press, Flock refuted the assertion, saying, “This is not how Flock ALPR cameras work. The cameras collect still images of license plates and vehicle details, but only send alerts to local law enforcement if a vehicle is stolen, associated with a wanted crime, or associated with a missing person (like in the case of an AMBER Alert). Images are saved only for 30 days, by default, after which they are hard deleted. In order to perform an investigative search in the system, law enforcement must enter a search reason, which is indefinitely auditable.”
One of the issues that opponents of cameras have is that all the data reportedly collected in Hernando County is available to every law enforcement agency around the country, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
However, in a statement to the Tampa Free Press, Flock said, “Local law enforcement are not automatically entered into any nationwide sharing system, and in fact must opt in to sharing data with whichever nearby local agencies they choose to share in. Sharing is always double opt-in on both agencies’ sides and can be revoked at any time. No local agencies are automatically or irrevocably enrolled in shared with any federal agencies.”
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Most local governments require an agency to request permits and provide a terms-of-use policy. For example, in Lake County, when the Board of County Commissioners discovered through social media that the Sheriff’s Office had launched a surveillance camera program, they immediately ordered their removal and issued a cease-and-desist letter to Flock Safety. Commissioner Josh Blacke told WKMG 6, Orlando, “It’s shocking they even put them in places where they never would’ve been approved in the first place had they gotten the appropriate approval,”
Four of the five Hernando County Commissioners, Beth Narverud, Jerry Campbell, Brian Hawkins, and John Allocco, have never questioned Nienhuis’ decision to implement spy cameras. Those same four commissioners refuse to answer the media’s questions regarding the spy cameras, and neither has Sheriff Nienhuis.
That’s what prompted Commissioner Champion to speak up during last week’s BOCC meeting and demand transparency and accountability in the Sheriff’s Office. “Did the Sheriff get permission to put these Chinese cameras on the right of way, because you need permission from the county to do that,” said Champion. “Maybe he can present to us what these are for, and I’ll have a better understanding, but I doubt there is going to be any explanation that is going to be satisfactory to me.” None of the other commissioners provided a substantive response to Champion’s remarks, but County Administrator Jeff Rogers said he didn’t believe the Sheriff needed the BOCC’s permission to place cameras on the right of way.
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R News reached out to Sheriff Al Nienhuis, but he has not responded to our requests for comment.
Candidate for Hernando County Sheriff Joe Puglia told R News, “A system such as Flock can be a valuable tool for law enforcement, absent the fingers of China being a partner. I think it was a bad decision to keep it from the constituents. After all, who gives a darn if the bad guys know we have it? Ultimately, we don’t want them here anyway. The optics of total surveillance of every way in and out of Hill N Dale is just plain bad. Now that it is here, it’s imperative that the Sheriff implement a policy regarding its use to include consequences for abuse of the system.”
Flock refuted this claim of ties to China, saying, “This is not true. We have no connection to Jengwei Investments or any other Chinese investments. Flock has a minority investor, Matrix Partners, that has wholly-separate firms in both India and China, but these firms do not co-invest or share investment decisions or information. Flock’s ALPR cameras are National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) compliant and we only operate in the U.S.”
This article was originally published on R News.
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