Springdale Surveillance Technology Local Control Ordinance
The ordinance bars the City from entering, renewing, or spending a dollar under any surveillance agreement that hands a vendor a perpetual licence, stores our data outside City control, or lets a vendor pass it on at its own discretion. Anything already running that does not comply has 180 days to comply or be shut off.
The City could no longer sign a surveillance contract that stores our data anywhere except servers the City controls, physically located here in Springdale. Right now every plate read and every video clip sits in a vendor's cloud, under an Amazon hosting agreement our own Chief says, in writing, the City has never seen. Home means our servers, our rules, our keys.
Every login and every search gets logged, with a reason. A supervisor reviews the logs. Misuse gets investigated and disciplined. No recording audio of conversations in public places. And once a year the City reports to the public: how many searches, everything shared outside the City, every finding of misuse, and the total cost.
Before the City buys or expands any surveillance technology, the Council has to approve it in public, with the product named on the agenda fourteen days in advance, a written impact report saying what it collects, who sees it, and what it costs, and a written use policy. The ordinance says it in so many words: a generic description like “safety software and hardware” does not satisfy this section. That sentence is in there because that is exactly how this system was bought.
The ordinance is not going to pass in time for the November 3 ballot. So we have to get them down some other way in the meantime, and then make it law in 2028.
Still think it is safe? They do not even have a copy of the contract with the people who actually house our data.
“We do not have a copy of the agreement between Flock and AWS.”
Section 2(b) says the City’s data has to sit on servers the City controls, physically located in Springdale. That clause exists because right now nobody at the police department can produce the agreement that governs the building the data actually sits in.
Every word, as submitted. Nothing on this page above it is a substitute for reading it.
(a) “Surveillance technology” means any device, software, or service used, operated, or contracted for by the City to collect, retain, process, analyze, or share information about identifiable persons or vehicles, or their movements, in public places, including without limitation: automatic license plate reader systems as defined in Ark. Code § 12-12-1802; fixed, portable, or mobile video cameras connected to a platform that stores or makes their footage searchable; gateways, software, or services that integrate other cameras into such a platform; video, image, or audio analytics; data-integration, real-time-crime-center, or “situational awareness” platforms; and unmanned aircraft used for surveillance of public places.
(b) “Captured surveillance data” means images, video, audio, license plate numbers, location and time data, and any data derived from them, collected by surveillance technology.
(c) “City-controlled server” means a server owned or controlled by the City of Springdale and physically located within the City of Springdale or on City-owned property.
(d) “Vendor” means any person or entity other than the City that provides surveillance technology or related services to the City.
The City shall not enter into, renew, extend, or expend funds under any agreement for surveillance technology that:
(a) grants a vendor or any third party an irrevocable or perpetual license to use captured surveillance data, or any right to use captured surveillance data for the vendor's own purposes, including product development, analytics, or the training of machine-learning or artificial-intelligence systems, beyond what is strictly necessary to provide the contracted service to the City during the term of the agreement;
(b) permits captured surveillance data to be stored or processed other than on City-controlled servers, except for encrypted transmission in transit;
(c) vests ownership of cameras, sensors, or related equipment installed on City property or in City rights-of-way in a vendor, or restricts the City's ability to remove, relocate, or disable such equipment;
(d) permits a vendor to access, preserve, or disclose captured surveillance data to any third party at the vendor's discretion, except as required by law; or
(e) permits captured surveillance data to be shared with any person or entity outside the City except as permitted or required by state or federal law, pursuant to a warrant, subpoena, or court order, or upon a written request, recorded in the audit log, that identifies a specific investigation.
The City shall not acquire, expand, or enter into an agreement for surveillance technology unless the City Council has first approved, at a regular meeting, (a) a written Surveillance Technology Impact Report identifying the technology by product name and describing each of its capabilities, the data it collects, how long the data is retained, with whom it may be shared, the vendor's rights in the data, and the total cost; and (b) a written Use Policy meeting the requirements of Section 4. The agenda for the meeting shall identify the technology by product name and principal capabilities and shall be published at least fourteen (14) days before the meeting. A generic description, such as “safety software and hardware,” does not satisfy this section.
Any surveillance technology used by the City shall:
(a) maintain a contemporaneous audit log of every login and every search or query, recording the identity of the user, the date and time, and the stated purpose or associated case or incident number;
(b) be used only for legitimate law-enforcement purposes, including active criminal investigations, locating stolen or wanted vehicles, missing-person cases, and AMBER or Silver Alerts; random or speculative searches, personal use, harassment, stalking, and searches relating to a person's lawful exercise of constitutional rights are prohibited;
(c) flag unusual or potentially improper patterns of use for review, which a captain or other designated supervisor shall regularly review together with the audit logs, with any suspected misuse investigated and, where appropriate, subject to disciplinary action;
(d) retain captured surveillance data no longer than permitted by Arkansas law (for license plate data, generally one hundred fifty (150) days, except when retained as part of an ongoing investigation), and not sell, trade, or exchange captured surveillance data except as permitted by Arkansas law;
(e) not be configured to capture or record audio of conversations in public places; and
(f) be the subject of an annual public report to the City Council, posted on the City's website, stating the number of searches or queries, all sharing with outside entities, the results of audits and any findings of misuse, and total expenditures.
(a) The City shall not renew or extend, and no City funds shall be expended under, any agreement for surveillance technology that does not comply with Section 2, except as required to avoid a breach of an agreement in effect on the effective date during the period described in subsection (c).
(b) The City shall exercise any right of non-appropriation, non-renewal, or termination available under any such agreement at the earliest opportunity.
(c) Any surveillance technology in use on the effective date of this Ordinance that does not comply with Section 2 shall be brought into compliance or its use discontinued, including operating, accessing, querying, and receiving data from it, within one hundred eighty (180) days after the effective date, to the fullest extent permitted by law and without incurring avoidable penalty.
This Ordinance does not apply to body-worn cameras; cameras that record police interactions with the public for accountability purposes; cameras used solely for security of the interior of City facilities; or 911, dispatch, and records systems used in the ordinary course. This Ordinance regulates only the City's own acquisition and use of surveillance technology and does not regulate cameras operated by private persons on private property. Nothing in this Ordinance authorizes any use of an automatic license plate reader system prohibited by Ark. Code § 12-12-1801 et seq., or requires the City to violate state or federal law.
If any provision of this Ordinance, or its application to any person or circumstance, is held invalid, the invalidity shall not affect other provisions or applications that can be given effect without the invalid provision, and to this end the provisions of this Ordinance are severable.
This Ordinance shall take effect thirty (30) days after the results of the election approving it are certified, consistent with Arkansas Constitution, Article 5, § 1.
The filed original
The measure exactly as submitted to the county clerk, three pages. The sponsor’s home address, phone number and personal email have been removed from this copy.
Read it, then tell the two people who represent your ward what you think of it. That is the whole ask.
We collect your email address and nothing else. No name, no location, no tracking of what you read here.