Amid growing concerns about cameras such as those provided by Flock Safety across the U.S., Daphne’s police chief has said the use of license plate readers has helped law enforcement in several investigations.

Flock Safety, based in Atlanta, produces and operates a variety of visual and audio detection devices, such as automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) and pan, tilt and zoom cameras (PTZs), for a vast network of organizations such as law enforcement agencies, neighborhood associations and private property owners.

Flock and its cameras, which sit atop poles mounted with solar panels and are installed along roads and highways, have become the subject of increased scrutiny over the past year, with critics and some community members accusing them of being a tool for mass surveillance, resulting in protests and vandalized cameras across the country.

Some municipalities within Baldwin County, such as Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Foley, currently utilize Flock Safety cameras within their communities, and Daphne has also prominently used such cameras along the Eastern Shore.

Daphne Police Chief Brian Gulsby told GCM that the department started using license plate readers (LPRs) around March 2023, but the city did not add Flock Safety LPR cameras until 2025, when he said they had four Flock cameras.

Gulsby has asked city officials to consider adding four more cameras, which was discussed at a Public Safety Committee meeting on Oct. 12. The addition of more cameras would require approval from the Daphne City Council and the mayor due to budgetary reasons. Gulsby said the cameras cost $3,500 apiece annually, but he doesn’t know when a decision will be made.

When asked how the department utilizes its LPR cameras, Gulsby said they use them in two ways: to flag a tag number in the event of a missing or endangered person and for use in homicide cases.

Gulsby recalled a recent incident in which a missing Alzheimer’s patient had taken a friend’s car without their knowledge and was gone for around two hours before he was reported missing. Gulsby said his tag number was put in the system, where they were able to locate him and return him home safely.

Meanwhile, Gulsby said their LPR cameras have been a “huge piece of the puzzle” in their last two homicide cases, including a June 2023 murder at Taziki’s Mediterranean Café, where he said authorities were able to use an LPR camera to identify the suspect quickly and arrest him in less than 12 hours.

Another homicide case that Gulsby said benefited from the use of LPRs was a murder that occurred at Audubon Park on Easter Sunday in 2024, where he said that, although other factors were used, an LPR was also used to help identify a suspect.

Gulsby said they can audit what their law enforcement officers use their cameras for. According to an audit of analytics from the past 30 days provided to the department by Flock Safety, Gulsby said law enforcement officers in Daphne have used the Flock system 49 times, with the No. 1 search being for robbery suspects, at 13 searches.

Gulsby said a “Facebook exchange type robbery” occurred behind the local AMC theater in Daphne around a month ago, saying officers were trying to find a vehicle that matched the suspect’s description in that area.

Ranking behind the robbery suspect searches, there were 12 searches for what Gulsby said were related to a vehicle theft that occurred at Terry Thompson Chevrolet a couple of weeks ago, where a Corvette was stolen and authorities used the system to try to find the stolen car.

Gulsby said the rest of the 49 searches in the past 30 days were related to endangered persons, wanted persons and domestic violence suspects.

Following months of public criticism and growing concerns, Flock Safety issued new privacy and accountability standards in August, reducing its 30-day data retention recommendation to seven days, which Gulsby said is the retention rate utilized by the Daphne Police Department. Flock Safety also introduced an “Evidence Mode,” where specific automated license plate reader data can be preserved in cold storage for active investigations.

Gulsby said all four of their Flock cameras were vandalized and damaged in July, with three of the four also being damaged in the aftermath of Hurricane Isaias, which swept through the Gulf Coast area earlier this month.

“Currently, we only have two cameras up and running, which really hampers our operations, especially if we’re looking for missing persons or endangers persons like our Alzheimer’s patient,” Gulsby said. “Not having those cameras when he was missing, all four of them were damaged and down at the time, and that hampered us looking for him.”

Gulsby said the cameras are “providing investigative capabilities that we’ve never had before,” recalling how a Kentucky state trooper was murdered at a traffic stop in September and saying authorities were able to find the suspect with the use of LPRs.

“It’s all over the country,” Gulsby said. “Abducted children are being recovered, the missing, endangered Alzheimer’s patients. It’s occurring almost every day and people just don’t realize that. If you have a family member that has dementia and may wander off, especially in a vehicle, these are irreplaceable. You can’t have a police officer in as many places as you can put a license plate reader to look for a missing persons. Same with domestic violence suspects. We’ve had several where we’ve been on the lookout for an estranged husband or a stalker that we believe may possibly be en route to a victim’s house, so you plug that tag number into the system and it’s a force multiplier. Basically, you’ve now got police officers all over the place in the form of these license plate readers looking for this violent offender, and there’s really no replacement for this.”

While Gulsby acknowledged there has been misuse of these cameras by police officers throughout the country, he said there has been no misuse in the Daphne Police Department, adding that only dozens of law enforcement officers have been reported to misuse them out of the hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers across the country.

“We’re auditing them,” Gulsby said. “They have to have a case number, which is really more restrictive than just if they wanted to run a tag while they’re sitting behind a vehicle in a red light. They don’t need a case number for that. They can just reach over to their mobile data terminal and run the tag. They don’t even have to have a reason. We find a lot of wanted persons and people driving revoked and suspended doing that. Matter of fact, I heard them on the radio this morning arrest a guy who was wanted for failure to appear, driving revoked for multiple DUIs, so he had no business on the roadway.”

Gulsby also said none of their LPRs utilize facial recognition technology.

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there and people that are getting their information about LPRs from off of social media. None of that is correct,” Gulsby said. “They don’t use facial recognition. They don’t tap into your phone’s Wi-Fi. None of those accusations people are making are accurate.”

Meanwhile, in the neighboring city of Fairhope, one local citizen asked city officials about Flock cameras during the public comment period of a City Council meeting on Sept. 29. Mayor Sherry Sullivan said the city has not elected to install any on city property, but it cannot control the installation of such cameras on county and state roads that run through the city’s jurisdiction, where entities such as the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office or state law enforcement would have the authority to put them up.