By Kevin Hendricks, The Paper.
Four Rio Rancho residents pressed the governing body Aug. 27 to pull the plug on the city’s Flock Safety camera network, arguing that 19 cameras logging every passing license plate amounts to warrantless mass surveillance — not the crime-fighting tool police describe.
Joaquin Montoya, speaking on behalf of privacy advocacy group DeFlock New Mexico, told councilors residents never agreed to having their movements tracked and shared. “This is a database of the innocent in the guise of public safety,” Montoya said. He asked the council to pause any contract renewal and remove the cameras outright.
Montoya wasn’t alone. Resident Matt Griffin said he wants the city to slow down on camera technology and get clearer answers on who can access the footage and how long it’s stored. District 2 resident Chris Adams took a narrower approach, saying his objection isn’t to any single vendor or today’s officials — it’s to building surveillance infrastructure at all. “Future governments inherit those capabilities, whether citizens approve or not,” Adams said. Another speaker told councilors he’d emailed every member about the cameras without a response and called the system a Fourth Amendment violation.
Mayor Paul Wymer didn’t take sides but pointed residents to the city’s ALPR webpage for more detail on how the program works. He also said the criticism isn’t unanimous. “They are happy that these surveillance systems are in place,” Wymer said, describing feedback he’s received in writing from other residents.
Police told councilors during an Aug. 18 work session that the most recent tracked data, from 2022 and 2023, shows the cameras helped recover 74 stolen vehicles, recover 50 stolen license plates and led to 85 arrests over the two-year span.
The program began in 2018 with cameras mounted on patrol vehicles before the department shifted to fixed, solar-powered units in 2020, settling on Flock Safety in part because the company doesn’t retain or sell the license plate data it collects. Under the current contract, data is deleted after 30 days unless an officer downloads it as part of an active case.
Police said cameras flag potential matches against the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database, but any hit is treated as an investigative lead — not probable cause on its own — requiring an officer to independently verify the match before taking action.
A new state law, Senate Bill 40, took effect July 1 and restricts how ALPR data can be shared, including barring its use for immigration enforcement. It also makes the data confidential and exempt from public records requests. Police said the department audits the system quarterly and would terminate employees if they are caught misusing law enforcement databases.
By the Numbers
- 19 fixed camera units citywide
- 74 stolen vehicles recovered (2022–23 data)
- 50 stolen plates recovered (2022–23 data)
- 85 arrests tied to camera leads (2022–23 data)
More details
Police began mounting cameras on patrol vehicles in 2018 and switched to fixed, solar-powered units in 2021, settling on Flock Safety in part because the company doesn’t own or sell the data it collects. Camera data is deleted after 30 days unless an officer flags it for an active case. State law SB 40, effective July 1, now restricts how that data can be shared, barring its use for immigration enforcement and shielding it from public records requests.
Learn more or weigh in:
- City ALPR information page: rrnm.gov/5071/Automated-License-Plate-Readers
- Aug. 18 police presentation to the Governing Body: youtube.com/watch?v=j7zm0ICc6ps&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rrnm.gov%2F
- Contact your councilor: rrnm.gov/governingbody