The board member of the Olde Stockdale Property Group, which paid thousands of dollars to have the machines installed, was able to trace the vehicle's plates to a Visalia car rental business. Much to Grzybowska-Grant's relief, a little investigation concluded there had been a false alarm: The vehicle had been leased by her neighbor, who really was looking for a wayward dog.
"But had he been an offender, that gave me an extra pull," she said.
License plate-reading cameras are springing up across Bakersfield and Kern County, bringing with them an added level of security that local law enforcement agencies say has made a significant dent in crimes such as theft.
The cameras have not gone over smoothly with everyone, however, because of privacy concerns and worries that the tracking capabilities they bestow could be misused by government or even by homeowner groups looking to combat increasingly brazen criminals.
No doubt there is a trade-off, people familiar with the technology say. Whether the cameras are paid for by taxpayers or private parties, they generally feed personal information to data networks operated by police agencies — in exchange for what can be an effective mechanism for stopping costly and potentially dangerous misdeeds.
People familiar with the technology say the cameras gather license plate information, as well as the make and model of the vehicle in question, but not the faces or identities of the people inside.
In April, the city of Bakersfield signed a $308,700, three-year contract with Flock Safety Group Inc., the Atlanta-based leader in automated license plate readers, or ALPRs. The deal covers 37 new cameras, on top of the 21 the Bakersfield Police Department signed up for in June 2021.
The Kern County Sheriff's Office uses ALPRs, too, having set up 25 of them on a test basis since September of last year. Although neither of the agencies was able to provide data demonstrating the machines' efficacy, and Flock did not respond to repeated requests for comment, a KCSO spokeswoman said by email the agency saw "a significant increase" in arrests using the cameras.
A public information officer at the BPD, Sgt. Andrew Tipton, said the machines are, at a minimum, a useful tool giving detectives additional information to catch criminals.
"It definitely has the potential to help us out in an investigation," he said.
Where the technology has raised the most eyebrows locally is among homeowner associations and the like, where residents have the option to contract the use of cameras and send the data they harvest to law enforcement — or not.
If they do go ahead with the investment, and decide to share information with police agencies, they can receive alerts when, for instance, a vehicle belonging to someone with an arrest warrant passes a camera, or if the vehicle is on a local or nationwide "hot list." Plus, association member-residents can opt out of the system so their information is not recorded.
Property association members and managers say it can be a hard sell, not only because of the privacy concerns but also the steep and ongoing expenses involved.
About two months ago, city-owned ALPRs went up in Bakersfield's The Vineyards HOA Community. The cameras created a stir on social media, where some residents expressed their appreciation, others aired doubts the machines would work — and still others sounded conspiracy alarms.
A community manager at the HOA, Tammy Paris, noted the community had no say in the matter — nor was it informed in advance that the cameras were coming — and that unlike the arrangement with private ALPR networks, residents are not given access to the resulting data.
Other HOAs she oversees looked into having private systems installed but haven't gone much further than that.
"I have associations that want cameras," Paris said, "but they don't have the funds for them."
Grzybowska-Grant at the Olde Stockdale Property Group, a nonprofit funded by voluntary contributions, said neighbors there were anxious to do something to increase their security after a high-profile incident in which a resident was abducted for a time by someone who was lying in wait for her.
The group considered hiring private security but chose not to, she said, because of the expense involved. One resident set up an ALPR on his property, but that went over badly when his neighbors objected to the idea of being monitored.
Even after the group invested in a system, and began sharing data with law enforcement, concern arose when one of the cameras was found to be pointing straight into someone's kitchen. Despite assurances the device does not collect non-vehicle images, the resident insisted the camera be pointed elsewhere.
"Finding placements for the camera was pretty tricky," Grzybowska-Grant said.
The system's not perfect, she pointed out; it doesn't register people who walk into the neighborhood as opposed to driving in, for example. But there's a sense the machines are deterring criminals who would otherwise steal packages off residents' porches or break into mailboxes.
"We have noticed a decline, I would say, in theft overall," she said. "We feel that things have improved."
© 2023 The Bakersfield Californian (Bakersfield, Calif.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
