TROY — The City Council has released two reports on how the Troy Police Department and other law enforcement agencies have used information collected by Flock license plate readers as a debate about how long the data should be kept and its proper use unfolds.
The reports do not say how many crimes in the Collar City have been solved with the help of the plate readers. But they do indicate that local police tend to use them within three days of a crime being reported, and that the 26 cameras within city limits have been accessed by law enforcement agencies around the country tens of millions of times this year alone.
One of the reports is based on audits kept by Flock, which were turned over to the council by the city’s police department. It details how the department and other agencies used data collected by Flock cameras in Troy over a roughly two-year period. The other report is based on a 60-day audit completed by the police department and details how long it typically takes for officers to search Flock’s data to help solve a crime after one has been reported…