WEST HOLLYWOOD—West Hollywood City Councilmember Chelsea Byers is hosting the town hall, “Let’s Talk About Flock” on Thursday, August 20 at 5:30 p.m., reopening a debate over the city’s surveillance camera program. The event will take place at Fan Girl Cafe on Santa Monica Boulevard.

The cameras at the center of the discussion are automated license plate readers that scan and log passing vehicles. They capture plate numbers, times, dates, and locations so law enforcement can search the data to help locate stolen vehicles or vehicles tied to a crime.

West Hollywood currently has 39 Flock cameras in use. Byers and community members plan to discuss the privacy, and surveillance concerns the cameras raise.

Cities around the country have been dropping or rewriting their Flock contracts for various reasons. Many believe the cameras violate Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Beyers’ concern is that the cameras have assisted ICE with deportations. That is what motivated her to co-initiate a review with Councilmember John Erickson earlier this year, aimed at ensuring West Hollywood’s data isn’t used to assist ICE operations, following reports from other cities.

After reports that Flock had been loose with its data, Byers stated:

“I don’t know how we recover from that sense of trust violated in this moment. And we keep hearing that it’s going to work and they’re putting safeguards in place, but ultimately, it’s up to us as a city to put some of these safeguards in place, and we’re doing our best to understand it. And I can’t give the sense of trust back to the public that we’ve done our due diligence in this moment here.”

The town hall comes just weeks after the city council voted 3 to 2 to keep the Flock cameras. Mayor John Heilman, Vice Mayor Danny Hang and Councilmember Lauren Meister voted yes, while Byers and Erickson voted no regarding Flock cameras.

Despite keeping the contract, the West Hollywood City Council approved stronger language that bars Flock from sharing data with ICE, requires Flock to notify the city immediately if it receives a subpoena for the data, and sets a $200,000 penalty if Flock fails to comply.