The national conversation about how much public surveillance is too much has come to the forefront in Butler County as municipalities weigh the pros and cons of automatic license plate readers.

ALPRs, including Flock cameras, capture images and use optical character recognition to extract license plate numbers. Collected data is processed for use by law enforcement or other entities with access to the cameras.

ALPRs have become a sore point for those worried about how the data collected is used and by whom.

According to DeFlock, a crowdsourced map of ALPRs, Butler County has about 102 readers across several municipalities.

Proponents of the technology tout its ability to help authorities solve crimes. According to Flock its ALPRs and artificial intelligence cameras assisted in solving about “700,000 crimes annually.”

On the flip side, reports of the inappropriate use of the technology have continued to rise. According to the Institute for Justice, 69 law enforcement officials were accused, charged or convicted of misusing the technology. The institute also maintains a database cataloging hundreds of instances of misuse since 2018, all but 21 from 2024 on.

To date, Butler County municipalities and businesses using ALPRs haven’t disclosed how many crimes they may have helped solve, and the Institute for Justice doesn’t list any misuse here so far.

However, the question becomes whether Butler County’s overall crime rate supports the notion ALPRs are a benefit to the community. According to Data Commons, Butler County’s overall crime rate is significantly lower than the national average.

Some local government officials and law enforcement agencies are voluntarily taking steps to remove the devices.

Just last month, Slippery Rock council voted to reject the renewal of its ALPRs. Last week, a sheriff in Wisconsin ordered the removal of all Flock cameras operated by his office, citing concerns over data collection and use. In Minnesota, news reports from across the state indicate more municipalities and law enforcement agencies are removing the cameras or covering them.

And where officials aren’t acting, private citizens are, vandalizing the devices to prevent them from collecting data.

It’s become a case of just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. Government shouldn’t be able to build a database of searchable history on every American simply because it might prevent crime.

— SLB