DFT distances from Flock cameras; DA defends use
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The swell of local rhetoric about Flock Safety cameras continues, with a company distancing itself and the Chautauqua County District Attorney proposing a countywide monitoring group to make sure the system isn't being abused.
DFT Communications distanced itself from Flock cameras in a statement emailed to its customers Wednesday night.
The Fredonia-based telecommunications company stated that "With the ongoing placement of Flock cameras in and around our service area, we believe it is important to make clear and dispel any misinformation that has been spread."
The company wrote that it "owns thousands of telephone poles across Chautauqua County. DFT retains the rights to allow or deny any equipment to be placed on these poles. Any company or government entity must receive explicit permission from DFT to place any facilities on a DFT pole."
The company then sought to clarify its dealings with the city of Dunkirk.
"In 2022, DFT was hired by the city of Dunkirk to install a closed-circuit security camera system," DFT stated. "These cameras are not Flock cameras, and they are only viewable by the city of Dunkirk Police Department."
The company concluded that it does not do business with Flock, and does not want to.
"We have not allowed, nor do we intend to allow, any Flock cameras to be placed on DFT poles. If a Flock camera has been installed on one, it was done so illegally without our consent or knowledge, and will be addressed with the utmost urgency. We routinely monitor our field network for tampering or illegally placed materials and will continue to do so."
On Thursday, Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt issued his own statement on the camera program.
"Last year I began looking into law enforcement camera and license plate reader ("LPR") systems for the Fredonia-Dunkirk communities to fill the void in coverage compared to Jamestown's public safety cameras," Schmidt said. "This was before most of us ever heard of Flock Safety and the controversies which have followed its national expansion. Criminals are opportunists who do not observe jurisdictional and geographical boundaries distinguishing communities, counties and states. This is especially true immediately after they've committed their crimes and need to flee the area to avoid capture."
Schmidt said cameras and license plate readers represent a necessary foothold in police efforts to solve and deter crimes, including low-level crimes like stealing packages from someone's porch and homicides and other critical incidents.
"Around September, 2025, efforts to identify a cost-effective camera and LPR supplier that met local police needs and which we can afford led us to Flock Safety," Schmidt said. "Aside from the manageable cost of its equipment and Flock's willingness to work within our comparatively modest budget and needs, Flock's network of coverage across county and state lines was its most attractive selling point. Long after criminals have committed their crimes and fled the area, police grind away 24/7 doing the hard work necessary to identify, find and capture them, many times outside of Chautauqua County."
Flock is one of the nation’s biggest operators of automated license-plate reading systems. Its cameras are mounted in thousands of communities across the U.S., capturing billions of photos of license plates each month. In March, San Jose Spotlight reported on Flock’s loss of some California contracts after unauthorized searches of locally collected data. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, Los Altos Hills and Mountain View had severed ties with Flock Safety over concerns the company enabled unlawful data-sharing between California law enforcement and out-of-state police. The Associated Press distributed the San Jose Spotlight story, in which Mountain View, Calif., officials revealed Flock had included their camera network in a national “lookup” setting without the city’s permission, allowing unauthorized law enforcement agencies to access their data. The news outlet reported that police in Massachusetts, Georgia and other states appeared hundreds of times in a camera network audit of neighboring Los Altos, whose 18 cameras remain operational. The Los Altos network logged 20 searches by out-of-state police for “immigration violation” reasons in the first two months of 2025.
"Flock's network of coverage offers a far more effective law enforcement tool than can be pieced together by our local police agencies, all woefully understaffed, working with the limited number of cameras and LPRs currently on hand," Schmidt said. "This is why nearly 100 police agencies here in New York State, and thousands of others across the country, have joined Flock's network. Yet, Flock's open network across jurisdictional lines appears to be the very feature which has caused the greatest concern amongst its opponents. By this point I am of course well aware of the controversies surrounding Flock Safety. I have heard, understand and appreciate the issues and concerns raised by its opponents, some of which are valid. I believe in full transparency and am 100% against government overreach and abuse of power. I also recognize that the recently-implemented safeguards against improper uses of Flock's open network (i.e., increasing the required inputs to ensure legitimate queries of the system, shortening Flock's data retention period from 30 days down to seven, and increasing our auditing capabilities to see who is accessing our equipment), have not assuaged opponents' fears and objections. "
Schmidt proposed forming a countywide monitoring group to meet with the district attorney every quarter to ensure against potential abuses of Flock's open network and addressing other local concerns as they may arise going forward.
"I welcome engagement by concerned residents, representatives of the legislative and executive branches of our County and local governments, and members of our local news outlets, as part of our system of checks and balances protecting against governmental abuses of power," Schmidt said. "We all want the same things for Chautauqua County; our disagreement is only in how we get there. We do not have to hate on, talk passed or demonize one another to find the best path forward. Fact-based analysis and constructive conversation by all of us, not conspiratorial accusations and name calling, is the proper way to advance a democratic society. Through careful and thoughtful navigation of the personal privacy concerns which underlie objections to Flock Safety, I believe we can pave a path forward in utilizing technology effectively, wisely, and respectfully. We can preserve the individual liberties which characterize Chautauqua County while improving and upgrading the mechanisms which protect its residents from those who would cause us harm."