Tonight is the night! 7pm @ City Hall (our rebuttal to Police Chief's letter)
Woodstock had a better Camera Plan! Does the city Really own the data? Maybe No
Tonight @7pm City Hall
It’ll be good, come have your voice and concerns heard. Support others that speak. Prepare your Statements. You are amazing!
There are 2 AI enabled venders as options. One of them being flock. You can find the Packet here with the contracts & police chiefs letters, starting on page 232.
Remember to be kind. Our City Council members have full time jobs outside of working for the council. We are grateful for their time and consideration. 🙏🏼
After Party/Gathering @ Liquid Blues. Why not? 🍻
Flock Terms and Conditions - Does the city own the data?
Take a glance at the Terms & Conditions for Flock. They are only posted online and can & have changed over time. Very weird.
Has our Legal Team reviewed these terms?
The city “Owns” the data, BUT Flock is contractually allowed to analyze footage, retain derivative outputs, and use images indefinitely to train its proprietary it’s AI systems (Look at §1.9, §4.3). It’s right there!
The agreement also allows Flock to disclose City data to third parties or law enforcement and permits downstream recipients to retain it beyond the City’s own retention limits (§4.4, §5.3)
We don’t fully control / own the data despite the sales pitch.
In 2024/25 CCTV Square Plan
In 2024/2025 the City projected $85k for a CCTV system. This is great, CCTV is much better than Year Subscription, AI Enabled, Cloud-based, data-sharing solutions like the Flock system and others that are being considered.
They didn’t follow through it sounds like because of “Electrical Issues”. Why couldn’t that be figured out? Why not solar panels for the cameras?
We have a quote for the city square for a 7 camera CCTV system for $12k. There are both more affordable solutions! Each camera would wirelessly beam the data to the NVR where footage is safely stored on Woodstock property, staying within the city of Woodstock.
CCTV is better than Flock or other AI Vendors
No Yearly Subscription
Long-term cost stability, no price hikes
Data stays local
Within the cities ownership, not in the cloud
Vulnerable to hacks/oversharing
No AI police - Our officers we trust are in control
Works during internet outages or vendor downtime
No vendor lock-in or sudden pricing changes
Rotating footage, deleted after 90 days (or shorter) per IL Law.
Rebuttal to The Police Chief’s Memo to City Manager
This is a misrepresentation, while some did express concerns about the LPR cameras. Most comment’s were regarding the Flock Security Cameras on the square & the related issues there. The meeting extended to 9pm due to the number of public comments. Saying “several” again misrepresents the volume of comments.
Based on both a FOIA as well as past documents. As of Nov 4th, no other vendors had been considered, no quotes received (Link to FOIA), etc. We believe this to be untrue, or the city has withheld FOIA info.
It appears that an $85k option was on the table in FY23/24, but got dismissed. We’re not sure what this large $200k estimate is, we have found no records to back this claim. We have a quote in hand for closer to $12k. It’s possible that the Police Chief is trying to say alternatives are just too expensive for us to consider. But that seems to be untrue.
Oops. Yes yes they have. Great video:
Flock Patent
It is important to note, that while these cameras don’t have “Face Detection”, partially because of IL Law around biometric. They are very capable AI Cameras that track many other things.
Solid breakdown on the data ownership loophole. The "royalty-free perpetual license" clause in §4.3 is basically giving away control while claiming ownership on paper. I had a simliar debate with my city council last year about ALPR systems and found the same contract langauge. Once the AI starts retraining on ur local data the whole "city owns it" pitch falls apart pretty fast.