There are no reports in Iowa of any deliberate vandalism of traffic cameras that are used to read license plates, but some Iowans oppose the use of so-called Flock cameras to gather data, fearing it could be misused.
Coralville has removed the cameras and a petition drive in Iowa City aims to have them taken down.
In Spencer, city manager Kevin Robinson responded to questions on social media about the cameras.
“The City of Spencer does not have any Flock cameras in Spencer,” he says. “There are zero. None. I want to be very clear.”
Robinson says the city does have a few cameras on street lights in the downtown area that are used for reading traffic flow.
He says it’s difficult for the city to fight false reports of the cameras online, as there are websites where anyone can claim they’ve seen them.
“What has happened is, people have got on these websites and stated there are Flock cameras in Spencer,” Robinson says. “These websites do not have a way for us to debunk that or prove that they’re not and get them removed and so those databases will continue to show that we have them. We do not have them.”
A report from the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa finds the use of automatic license plate readers is expanding in Iowa.
It found Cedar Rapids had the most cameras in the state at 76, while West Des Moines had 64 cameras, and Clinton County had 58.
