Ogden police chief defends 41 license-plate readers as council members ask about placement

KSL.com reported that Ogden Police Chief Jake Sube defended the city's network of 41 Flock-brand automated license-plate readers during a City Council work session on Tuesday. Officials took no formal action. ^[1]

Sube said the system has helped recover stolen vehicles and locate suspects. He said only a limited number of officers have access and must give a reason for each search, data is kept for 30 days and then permanently deleted, and local rules bar use for immigration enforcement. Other agencies must meet the same requirements to obtain data, he said, and the cameras have no facial recognition or link to the state driver license database. He said Ogden has received no accusations of improper use. ^[1]

Council members Alicia Washington and Kevin Lundell asked about the cameras' placement in older neighborhoods of central Ogden. Lundell said reallocating some cameras to other areas "would lend credibility that we're not surveilling certain kinds of people." Sube said the location was chosen because the program began in the late 2000s with funding from a federal-local partnership aimed at violent crime in that area. ^[1]

Utah Sen. Calvin Musselman, R-West Haven, told the council that state officials are likely to take up license-plate readers in the 2027 legislative session. He said Ogden may be "going above and beyond" current state-level momentum, and that one idea is minimum statewide standards that cities could exceed. ^[1]