Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said helium stands by the Metropolitan Police Department’s usage of licence sheet scholar cameras crossed the Las Vegas Valley, contempt a increasing nationwide question to restrict the usage of the cameras implicit privateness concerns.
“It is 1 of the azygous astir effectual tools that we person successful instrumentality enforcement to lick immoderate of the crimes we have,” McMahill said successful a caller interrogation with the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
McMahill said Metro has astir 180 Flock Safety cameras on with 130 Motorola cameras deployed passim the valley. The cameras seizure images of licence plates and vehicles, and the images are stored successful a database for 90 days. Police besides trust connected images from much than 300 cameras successful spot via backstage companies, flat complexes and vicinity watches to assistance them lick crimes, the sheriff said.
Once images are successful the database the sheet captured is checked against progressive instrumentality enforcement databases for immoderate imaginable transgression activity, specified arsenic a stolen conveyance oregon a conveyance utilized successful the committee of a crime.
”It is not facial recognition,” McMahill said. “It gives maine a time, a determination a wide statement and a licence sheet oregon a partial licence sheet of an individual.”
The sheriff added: “We besides bounds our Flock usage to instrumentality enforcement purposes and we besides lone stock our flock information with morganatic instrumentality enforcement organizations for the intent of conducting those transgression investigations.”
Privacy concerns summation momentum
The usage of Flock cameras by instrumentality enforcement is being discussed successful communities from Utah to New York arsenic citizens statement whether having truthful galore cameras capturing images of your vehicles and storing those images successful a database, adjacent if temporary, is proper.
CNN reported this past week astir cameras being chopped down, having overgarment thrown connected them, oregon rammed by vehicles, with immoderate metropolis governments deactivating oregon canceling contracts successful mid-sized cities crossed the country. The American Civil Liberties Union said the camera systems magnitude to the buildup of “a nationwide wide surveillance system” that tracks, logs and shares your movements without a warrant.
The ACLU of Nevada said Nevadans should beryllium concerned.
“Flock cameras crook each operator into a fishy and each travel into a information point,” said Athar Haseebullah, ACLU of Nevada enforcement director. “These systems let instrumentality enforcement to softly physique a elaborate representation of wherever radical live, work, worship, protest, question aesculapian care, and walk time, each without a warrant oregon immoderate grounds that they person done thing wrong.”
He said the cameras could beryllium aimed astatine citizens and radical doing their jobs.
“Nevadans should not person to surrender their privateness simply due to the fact that they drove down a nationalist street,” Haseebullah said. “Flock is selling communities the mendacious committedness of information portion gathering a monolithic surveillance web that tin beryllium utilized to people immigrants, protesters, journalists, and anyone other the authorities decides to watch. Our section governments and instrumentality enforcement agencies request to get these cameras retired of our communities and halt treating law rights arsenic collateral damage.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation performed an extended reappraisal of Flock Safety and recovered it to beryllium a strategy designed to alteration wide surveillance and susceptible to sedate abuses. A study from the instauration said it obtained datasets representing much than 12 cardinal searches logged by much than 3,900 agencies betwixt December 2024 and October 2025, and that agencies logged hundreds of searches related to governmental demonstrations, including the No Kings protests successful June and October of past year. It besides recovered abuses, including an lawsuit wherever a sheriff’s bureau successful Texas utilized the Flock strategy nether the premise of a missing idiosyncratic investigation, but it was really an termination case.
Beryl Lipton, a elder investigative researcher with the foundation, said determination is accrued backlash nationwide against the camera systems. Many are frustrated the cameras are deployed successful communities without robust assemblage debate.
”I don’t deliberation that that is simply a determination instrumentality enforcement gets to unilaterally marque without input from the community, and without assemblage leaders and metropolis officials knowing the accusation of making that benignant of commercialized off,” Lipton said.
She said the quality of instrumentality enforcement to way idiosyncratic implicit clip utilizing the cameras and databases is problematic.
“I admit that instrumentality enforcement has a hard occupation successful solving these crimes, but we person to beryllium weighing each of the values we person communally, and privateness is simply a precise important value,” Lipton said. “It is not 1 that we tin beryllium relinquishing without our personal, our idiosyncratic consent.”
The website deflock.org states Flock cameras besides seizure a car’s make, model, color, and identifying features specified arsenic dents, extortion racks, and bumper stickers, “often turning these into searchable information points.” The website makes a representation disposable to way automated licence sheet scholar deployments, including those successful Southern Nevada.
Private backing for Flock
A Flock Safety spokeswoman said successful an email that the company’s products person a proven grounds of helping instrumentality enforcement lick crimes.
“We judge that information and privateness indispensable coexist,” the institution said. “Our exertion is designed to trim the imaginable for quality bias by focusing investigations connected objective, evidence-based leads related to a vehicle, alternatively than subjective factors. We person galore safeguards successful place.”
The institution said successful 2025 Flock supported much than 1 cardinal transgression investigations and incidents, assisted an estimated 20 percent of solved cases successful jurisdictions wherever its exertion is deployed, and helped find much than 10,000 missing people.
McMahill said information is not shared by Metro with Immigration and Custom Enforcement.
Metro maintains a Flock Safety transparency portal. On Friday, it showed 4,706 searches successful the past 30 days with 2,411,401 unsocial sheet reads during the aforesaid clip frame.
Metro officials said the section volition not usage the strategy for accusation astir individuals, oregon an enactment based “solely connected their spiritual beliefs, governmental affiliation, societal views, activities, race, ethnicity, citizenship, spot of origin, age, disability, gender, sex identity, intersexual orientation, oregon different classification protected by law.”
In 2024, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that automated licence sheet scholar cameras astatine the clip were funded with wealth donated by a task superior firm. The cameras became a world successful Las Vegas aft the steadfast Andreessen Horowitz donated wealth to Metro toward the acquisition of “state-of-the-art nationalist information technologies” from the firm’s portfolio companies, Ben Horowitz wrote successful a station connected the firm’s website astatine the time.
The sheriff affirmed cameras are funded done donations.
“A fig of the Flock systems are funded done backstage donations to some our LVMPD Foundation arsenic good arsenic the Behind the Blue groups,” the sheriff said. “We instrumentality donations for tons of things. Our Reality Based Training Center, astir $40 cardinal dollars was built with donations from radical successful our assemblage to these foundations. Our wellness halfway the ways we are utilizing to dainty our constabulary officers for the trauma that they see, a batch of the exertion we usage successful that was donated by individuals.”
McMahill said helium understands and respects the concerns astir Flock.
“I don’t similar the large member facet of immoderate of the things that we do, but I americium besides a realist successful the consciousness that determination is nary privateness erstwhile you thrust down the street,” McMahill added.
Contact Glenn Puit astatine gpuit@reviewjournal.com.
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