Cedar Rapids Police Department expands surveillance with 70 new license plate reader cameras
The Cedar Rapids Police Department recently finished installing 70 stationary license plate reader cameras, which scan license plates and run them through national crime databases to search for missing person alerts, stolen vehicle reports, and arrest warrants.
Cedar Rapids Police Chief David Dostal told The Gazette earlier this year that he was looking forward to using the cameras to improve efficiency in the department.
"It's a force multiplier for us going out as officers, because we can't be in every place at every time. I think that is a huge assistance that will help us deter crime," Dostal said.
The cameras work by saving the license plate numbers and other information about all vehicles that pass by and running that information through a database of arrest warrants, Amber Alerts, and missing vehicle reports. When a car matches a vehicle on the list, police officers receive an alert letting them know to check on that car. Any hits have to be verified by an officer before action is taken on them, according to the Cedar Rapids Automated License Plate camera official policy.
The vehicle data is also saved in a database for 30 days so that if officers are looking for a car later that month in relation to a case, they can search for times and places it has been spotted by cameras in the city. That data is available to other law enforcement agencies, but "will only be disseminated to other law enforcement agencies for legitimate law enforcement purposes consistent with this procedure upon the expressed permission of the Chief of Police or his designee," the Cedar Rapids policy states.
There are 48 police agencies besides the Cedar Rapids department that have access to the Cedar Rapids Flock data, according to an online transparency portal through Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based company that operates the stationary cameras in Cedar Rapids.
License plate reading cameras are becoming more popular across the state. The University of Iowa police department installed 28 of them in 2023, Marshalltown installed 32 last year, and North Liberty installed 12 last year. All of those cities bought their cameras through Flock Safety.
Holly Beilin, the communications director for Flock Safety, said the growth in use of the cameras has been happening nationally. The company began operations in 2017, and has been hired by police departments in all 48 contiguous United States to install cameras.
Cedar Rapids has had mobile license plate reader cameras attached to two police squad cars since 2015. They were purchased from Vigilant, a California-based company.
As of Thursday, all 70 stationary cameras that the city purchased as part of a $499,250, two-year contract with Flock have been installed.
The police department declined to share information with The Gazette about the locations of the cameras, but most of their locations have been identified on a crowdsourcing website called Deflock, which aims to share information about the use of license plate readers around the world.
Not all 70 camera locations are available, but users have identified 62 cameras, which are marked on the interactive deflock map, and a Gazette reporter was able to verify the locations of 61 of them. One camera was marked on Fifth Street NW, in front of St. Patrick's Catholic Church, where there does not appear to be a camera set up.
Many of the cameras are placed at large intersections—like the four cameras, one facing in each direction, at the intersection of First Avenue East with Collins Road NE. Others are along major thoroughfares—including several along Edgewood Road SW and NW, Wilson Avenue SW, and First Avenue West and East. But some of the cameras seem to be more specifically focused, like two that are stationed on J Street SW on either side of the entrance to Cedar Valley Apartments.
According to a page explaining the city's use of the cameras on the Cedar Rapids website, "They are placed at key entry/exit points and areas where enhanced security measures can have the greatest impact."
In the last 30 days, nearly 3,000 vehicles triggered alerts to officers.
As of Thursday, the cameras had detected 413,104 vehicles in the last 30 days, according to the online transparency portal, which is regularly updated through Flock Safety. Of those vehicles, 2,969 vehicles triggered an alert to officers. Police officers also searched the database 1,048 times in the last 30 days.
Officers are not allowed to search the system without listing a "legitimate law enforcement purpose ... supported by documented and verifiable information" for the search, according to the city's policy. Only officers who have been trained in the proper use of the system can access it.
The policy also states that data from the cameras is not allowed to be used for personal use, to harass or intimidate a person or group, or to track someone based on a protected characteristic, like race or gender. Misuse of the system could result in termination of the officer.
Beilin said Flock gets a lot of questions from community members in the places they install cameras about privacy concerns and that the company has a team of people dedicated to talking with city councils and community groups about their safety policies.
"We see it pretty much everywhere, these questions, which is totally reasonable. Taxpayer dollars are being spent on this technology, and folks want to understand what it's being used for, and we think those are very reasonable questions, and we're always happy to answer them," Beilin said.
"Flock is really built on protecting resident privacy, protecting personal liberties, protecting democratic authority, and so we have a whole number of features in place to ensure that data is well-encrypted, protected, and secure, that we have common-sense data deletion policies so that it's not retained for longer than a community wants it, and that we ensure accountability and transparency."
So far, the Cedar Rapids cameras have been used to make "successful arrests related to warrants, stolen vehicles, domestic assault, and property crime investigations cases ... They've also been successfully used to reunite families after loved ones are reported missing," according to the Cedar Rapids website.
----
Comments: (319) 398-8328; [email protected]
© 2025 The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa).
Visit thegazette.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
