By Mateus Ferreira/Editor-In-Chief and Imani Russeau/Staff
Graphic by Angel Lopez/Staff and photo by Mae Grimm/Staff
After questions from Talon Student Media, UT Tyler agreed to publicly release information about its campus Flock cameras through the Flock website. A local activist, however, said the decision does little to resolve privacy concerns surrounding the cameras, which capture license plates and turn the information into searchable data.
In an interview with the Talon, UT Tyler President Julie Philley defended the university’s use of the cameras and said she would look into creating a transparency portal.
“We love students from all kinds of places, all kinds of regions, all kinds of backgrounds, and we want them to feel welcome and safe on this campus,” she said. “A part of that is surveillance. You have to know who’s coming and going, and that’s that’s a part of it. And so we’ve utilized this technology, and it has been helpful in the past. But I can’t think of any instances where it has been used, nor would I ever condone it to be used to try to incriminate someone for anything.”
The portal shows 20 license plate readers on campus that have tracked 44,395 license plates from Oct. 3 to Nov. 2. During that 30-day span, camera data was accessed 14 times.
“This way we can show our community members the manner in which we utilize the license plate technology,” said Chief of Police Mike Medders about the portal. “We have always used the technology for law enforcement purposes only, and we want our community to understand how the technology assists in our efforts to keep our campuses safe.”
Robin Wright, founder and campaign manager of DeFlockTyler, said transparency portals do not address privacy concerns surrounding Flock cameras.
“It’s a step in the right direction, but it absolutely doesn’t take away any of the security vulnerabilities,” she said.
Before the portal was created, Wright explained that even if UT Tyler created one, it would not resolve concerns about how data could be shared with other agencies. She said Flock cameras still create “dynamic surveillance systems” and raised concerns that student data could be accessed by federal immigration authorities.
Wright pointed to the 287(g) agreement between Smith County and DHS, which has 32 trained police officers to take individuals into ICE custody. Tyler Police Department is listed on the portal as an agency receiving information from UT Tyler.
She also questioned the reliability of the reasons agencies provide when searching Flock’s database. Although each search requires a stated reason, Wright said officers could misrepresent the purpose of a search to access certain information in the database. The portal lists UT Tyler Police Department’s top search categories as theft, welfare checks, car accidents and trespassing.
She said the portal does not show searches by partner agencies and that universities can control much of what the transparency portals show to the public.
Medders said Flock camera information is only shared with agencies and counties associated with UT campuses, along with other UT institutions and the Texas Department of Public Safety.
When asked about concerns about the misuse of data sharing, Philley said student concerns are important to her but that the point of the cameras is campus security.
“It’s all about safety,” she said. “You’ve seen, you’ve heard, you’ve read about the difficulties college campuses face, and it’s devastating to think about violence occurring on a college campus for any reason. But as a part of keeping students safe and understanding what is happening, those cameras have been in place.”
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