License plate readers are watching traffic in Hunters Point and LIC. They’re not “Flock cameras,” and it’s not clear if the agencies running them talk to each other.
At least 15 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are mounted on poles and bridge gantries across Hunters Point and Long Island City, operated by two separate city agencies using two different sets of vendors, according to a Hunters Point Ledger review of crowdsourced mapping data. Neither system is part of Flock Safety, the private company whose name has become shorthand for license plate cameras nationally.
The New York Police Department operates seven and the New York City Department of Transportation operates eight ALPR’s in our neighborhood. The two networks sit within a few hundred feet of each other in places, including a cluster of NYPD gantry cameras at the Vernon Boulevard approach to the Queensboro Bridge. This is in addition to the many mobile ALPR’s the NYPD operate mounted to their police cars.
Flavors of Automatic License Plate Readers
Leonardo
Fixed, gantry-mounted units tagged to NYPD. Some installations have multiple camera heads covering several lanes and directions from a single gantry.
Genetec
Pole-mounted units explicitly tagged to the NYPD. Generally single or dual-direction.
Ekin Box Spotter
Pole-mounted units operated by NYC DOT. Manufacturer’s own materials describe real-time comparison of captured plate data against law enforcement databases
It remains unclear whether the two agencies share the data their systems collect. The Ledger requested comment from DOT, and filed a records request with DOT seeking any data-sharing agreement with NYPD, along with the department’s data retention policy and any required public disclosure of the technology, and the FOIL request should be responded to…by 2027.
Ekin was also asked directly whether its equipment shares data with other agencies and we’ve yet to get a response.
What is an ALPR, and why saying they are “Flock cameras” isn’t quite right
Automated license plate readers are cameras that photograph vehicle plates and convert the image to text, usually checking it against a database in real time. They’ve become common in American cities over the past decade, used for everything from traffic enforcement to criminal investigations.
Flock Safety, a private company, has built one of the most widely used ALPR networks in the country and is often the reason the cameras get nicknamed “Flock cameras” in casual conversation, even when the actual hardware isn’t Flock’s. That’s the case here: none of the units identified in this review are Flock equipment. They belong to two separate public agencies running their own, separate systems.
Randy Plemel
Publisher
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The founder and publisher of the Hunters Point Ledger, a newsletter covering Hunters Point South and Long Island City. He serves on Queens Community Board 2, and all views are his own.
