Sanibel's police licence plate cameras keep a year of vehicle records, fifty two times the default Flock now recommends, and the city manager has told council the 2022 contract still says the company owns the data

Sanibel police run three automatic licence plate reader cameras, hold what they record for a year, and operate them under a 2022 contract that the city manager has now told council does not match how the city describes its own data.

The account comes from an agenda memorandum written by City Manager Dana A. Souza for the council's regular meeting on Tuesday morning. It was listed as New Business item 13(a), an informational item, with a recommended action of discussion and direction. Nothing was voted on.

Two of the three Flock Falcon cameras sit at the Sanibel Causeway and photograph vehicles arriving on and leaving the island. The third is on Middle Gulf Drive. The cameras photograph the rear of a vehicle and convert the plate, the colour, the make, the body type and other visible characteristics into searchable data, and they also produce traffic volume counts the department uses to decide where to put officers.

The memorandum is specific about what the cameras do not do. They do not record audio, do not use facial recognition and do not capture vehicle identification numbers. The city does not use Flock's Raven audio detection cameras, its Condor cameras, or its FreeForm scene searching product.

Sanibel keeps the data for a year. The memorandum gives the reason in the city's own words: a large seasonal population, and the possibility that a crime is not discovered until a property owner returns to the island months later.

That sits against a number Flock itself published this month. In August 2026 the company announced a set of privacy and accountability measures that includes a recommended and default retention period of seven days. Sanibel's year is fifty two times that, on this desk's arithmetic against the memorandum's own two figures. The memorandum does not put the year up for review. It says staff will evaluate Flock's changes as they become available.

The contract is the part the city says needs fixing. Council approved Memorandum of Understanding 22-066 with Flock Group on July 19, 2022, on a five year term. That agreement states that Flock retains ownership of the recordings and the data provided through the service. Flock's standard terms have since changed so that customer data belongs to the customer, and the city attorney and city manager have asked Flock for an updated agreement to clarify ownership and control of Sanibel's data. An updated agreement is to come back to council.

The memorandum also corrects two errors itself. An earlier agenda memorandum described the 2022 item as renewing an agreement with Flock; the city manager writes that this is incorrect and that the agreement was intended to replace ageing Genetec cameras. And the signed contract in the packet carries the city manager's signature misdated June 19 rather than July 19, 2022.

Cameras are not new here. The memorandum dates Sanibel's use of plate reading technology to 2008, first with NDI equipment, then with Genetec cameras supplied by Johnson Controls from 2015, and Flock Falcon cameras from 2022.

On safeguards, access is limited to sworn police officers, dispatchers and qualified city IT staff who have completed Florida Department of Law Enforcement training, each through an individual account. The system logs the user, the date and time, the scope and criteria of a search, the offence type, the case number where there is one, the filters used and the period searched. City IT audits that activity weekly and monthly, and irregularities go to police command staff and the IT director. Misuse may cost an officer access and bring discipline.

The memorandum states that federal agencies are excluded from Flock's statewide and national lookup networks and have no automatic or back door access to Sanibel's data, and that Flock has told city staff it does not sell any agency's data or operate as a data broker. Both are the city setting out its configuration and relaying what the company has told it, not the result of an outside audit.

Police Chief William Dalton defended the cameras to Gulf Coast News, which reported on the discussion on Wednesday evening. The plate readers are another tool that helps the department do its job and keep the community and its visitors safe, he said. The same report noted that one resident wrote to council that the city's contract with Flock must be canceled immediately, and that the city has no plans to add more cameras at this time.