Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Health and Safety Committee with Denver City Council.

Coverage of the Health and Safety Committee starts now.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Daryl Watson.

I want to welcome you to the Health and Safety Committee for October 29th.

I am honored to serve all of the residents of the Fine District 9 and to be the committee chair for the Health and Safety Committee.

This morning we have one briefing and one item on consent.

The briefing will be on an update to the surveillance task force.

It'll be led by the administration, the mayor's office, and Denver Police Department.

Before we roll into this briefing and uh and discussion from city council.

We'll go around the room and have uh brief introductions.

First, let's start online.

I believe we have a uh city council member online.

I think Cashman.

Yeah, good morning, Mr.

Chair Paul Cashman, South Denver District Six.

Thank you so much, uh Councilmember Cashman.

And we'll start from our right when introductions are around the table.

Good morning, Jimmy Torres, West Denver District 3.

Kevin Flynn, South West Denver's District Two.

Mandasaur, District 5.

Flora Elvidres, Lucky District 7.

Good morning, Serena Gonzalescuch, one of the council members at large.

Sarah Perity, also council member at large.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you so much to the administration to Denver Police Department.

We'll turn it over to Mr.

Hoffman for kicking us off and providing kind of uh the structure of uh today's briefing.

Thank you, Councilman.

Uh I'll first do an introduction of the team.

I'm Tim Hoffman.

I'm in the mayor's office.

I service his director of policy.

Uh Chief Ron Thomas.

Jake Murr, Commander DPD.

And Cliff Barnes, Commander of TPD.

Great.

Um, and we do have a PowerPoint presentation.

Uh yeah, great, it's pulled up.

Um, so just uh walking through what we're gonna be talking about today, we'll give an update on the surveillance technology task force.

We'll give an overview through the Denver Police Department as well as technology services on the city process for onboarding and monitoring monitoring surveillance technologies in the city, and then we'll delve a little bit into the FOC contract as well.

The surveillance technology task force was formed uh in the spring of this year, is based on discussions that we had with council members as um questions came up around the flock amendment that was put forth and the um the recognition I think by all parties that um there were maybe some gaps in our our system as it relates to surveillance technologies in the city.

Um, and so it uh it uh was built in the spring, comprised of folks from the mayor's office, several of the um departments you see around the table, the district attorney, city attorney, both the state and municipal public defender, the office of the independent monitor, the citizen oversight board, um several community groups, and uh including um CERC and the task force for remanaging police, as well as uh some subject matter experts, both local and national subject matter experts.

I'm happy to provide council members with the full list of all members of the task force.

Um, and I just want to before anything else um thank I know that there are some members of the task force who are in the room, others who are either watching or um online, um, thanking them for uh their efforts thus far.

It's not a um not something that we are done discussing.

We're gonna we're gonna be having task force meetings moving forward, but um, I want to thank every one of them for showing up and having some pretty tough conversations.

Um that's the other um framing that I'll have is um these are really contentious and important issues.

Um when you talk about surveillance technologies in the city.

Um it has real implications for privacy um of the residents of of this jurisdiction.

It has civil liberties considerations as well, and then it also has public safety implications.

Um and there are people who have very, very uh different views on how to balance those things.

Um and so it it has been um a group who have shown up in good faith each of the meetings.

Um it's been tough conversations, but um uh it's a really really important topic.

Um, so as I mentioned, the the goal was twofold, both studying the current state of surveillance technologies in the city, um, and then uh looking at rules, regulations, and potential ordinances for how to strengthen our policies and procedures moving forward.

Um we will uh I've been speaking with Council Member Watson um about coming back um at some point uh in January to give uh a status update of kind of where we are in the task force.

So um that is kind of the next uh the next um target that we're gonna be moving towards.

And then uh before we move on to the next slide, I also just wanted to um acknowledge uh specifically, there are uh three members of city council who are on the task force council members parity of consults Gutierrez and Flynn.

Um they have been uh great thought partners on both the substance of what the task force is trying to do, but also um working through some of the process and growing pans of setting up a task force like this.

Um, and so one of the things that I've had conversations about with the council members is making sure that moving forward with the future meetings, um, that there's a clear agenda of the next several meetings coming up, that there are materials provided in advance and other things so that we can have the most uh fruitful discussions during the task force meetings as possible.

So I wanted to specifically thank those three members for all of the um all the support and the feedback they've given.

I'm gonna now hand it over to Commander Barnes to talk about how DPD looks at technology acquisition for new uh new surveillance technologies.

Thanks, Tim.

Good morning.

I'm happy to kind of provide a high-level overview on the technology acquisition and implementation process for DPD.

Really, it's it's most of these large projects are collaborative efforts, and so I'm gonna try to shed a little bit of light on on that collaborative collaboration this morning, uh keep it pretty high level and happy to answer questions uh at the end of the presentation as well.

So the Cyber Bureau, although relatively new on the DVD side, uh it's a few months and and uh, you know, it's been a few months since it was since it was created, really evaluates uh you know major technology initiatives and and uh new potential technology products and platforms, and uh and we work with so when that happens, typically we're working with other agencies and internal DPD teams to understand the business impact and kind of bridge the technology and the business operations side because we understand both sides.

And it's uh typically there's there's uh a lot of evaluation that happens.

So we're talking with other agencies with other organizations on their implementation, uh, data from you know how pilot programs have gone, or if there's a well-established program from another part of the country or even another part of the world, we're looking at uh those types of things to understand the potential efficacy here in Denver.

Uh we also collaborate very uh uh closely with the chief's office to make sure that any type of technology that we're evaluating is in line with the chief's strategic goals for the organization.

So those can be to solve, you know, uh target a specific type of crime reduction or to solve a problem, uh could be like a business operational problem that we're trying to solve.

We try to make sure that we're being as transparent as possible with you know um how that specific new technology platform would impact operations and be integrated into uh our process.

Um, in line with all of that, I uh my teams also collaborate very closely with the TS side of the fence.

Um typically we help navigate, you know, the a new technology platform or initiative into the TS intake process.

There's there's a formal intake process for that.

Um, as part of that, there is a vendor risk assessment that I know has come up several times, and we've we've gone into detail uh about how that works, and that's uh with Terra's teams.

And uh that helps establish the uh with any vendor that we're working with that helps establish you know some specific parameters around uh how they store data, how they transport data, are they managing data in an industry best practices manner, and uh can we trust them with our data essentially?

Um there are a lot of components to that TS intake process, and and uh I don't want to step on Tara's toe, she can get into that more if she wants later, but there's also I wanted to highlight the TAR, the technical architecture review process as well as part of that intake, which any platform that's or new technology product that enters that process, there's technology services teams that evaluate that product and see how it integrates into the current city's um technology landscape and and environment to make sure that it's that it's going to play well and is interoperable.

The Cyber Bureau as well uh make sure that we're uh you know engaging in the competitive process following purchasing rules within the acquisition acquisition there.

Obviously, we're working close with purchasing and with technology services on that.

Um there's also the contracting piece that we help navigate.

Some of those contracts are owned by the Department of Safety.

Some of those contracts are owned by technology services, and we help navigate those items.

Any part of, and I'll go into this more in detail later.

I think there's a future slide we'll talk about, but any part of any new technology initiative or project policy and governance is a major consideration that we have to evaluate.

So, you know, whatever whoever the business owner is on the DPD side, it may or may not be the Cyber Bureau, could be another bureau.

We work closely with them on establishing policy controls before we roll out any type of new technology platform.

And I think we'll, like I said, we'll get into that a little bit more later, but there's a section 119 of the DPD operations manual that uh basically shows every single type of business technology uh that uh that we use in our operations and uh um and is that we always you know make sure to to dial that in before we roll out any new technology uh initiative implementation and since statement is a big part of that too.

Obviously, there are considerations for especially any new complex or or large technology system.

There's uh you know, typically implementation is a project, so we do a lot of project management on our side to make sure that it's implemented, and uh, and then you know, how are we going to sustain it into the future?

So those are all considerations that we evaluate uh when rolling out these new things.

I'll hand it off to Tara for VRAs.

Okay, thank you.

Uh so Tara Sakura, on my team, I have um the city's governance risk and compliance team, privacy and record management.

And um, for those of you that might be fairly familiar with our tech services department and um various types of assessments we've uh conducted in the past, it used to be a security assessment, and over the last three years we've matured it and turned it into the vendor risk assessment process.

And with doing that, we brought in stakeholders from the security team, architecture, ADA compliance, records management, and privacy, and brought all of those stakeholders together to create a comprehensive review of our technology vendors.

So when we do this, we submit, we create an automated uh questionnaire assessment for the vendor to complete.

Um, and we do in our we attempt to do this for all technology vendors, whether it's a situation where we're procuring a SAS solution such as the sign-up genus, to um looking at something that's going to be a citywide impact, something that's gonna be a system of record for our city records.

Um, so we are conducting the same assessment across the board for all of our vendors to be equitable and make sure that we are um reviewing and taking the greatest consideration when we bring in technology.

So we send out an assessment, each of these stakeholders receive tasks within the workflow review, determine whether they can approve or deny for the tool to continue to move forward in the implementation and procurement processes.

And during this process, uh it's really great having this group together because we can identify risk, and we can also identify whether we have the ability to mitigate the risk.

Sometimes the mitigation of the risk is through the agreements that we create with the vendor, sometimes it's um working with the vendor that creates specific access controls or modifying the business um implementation and business operations associated to the tool.

Um, and then sometimes we deny the vendor and we work with folks to look at other vendors that might be possible technology partners.

Um also want to kind of point out two key considerations, especially with the work that we do with uh DPD is the current environment of looking at AI, assessing it, and then also the privacy considerations across the board.

So we're always gonna bring in the scope associated to the technology.

So, what are all of the business operations and the data involved and in the use of the technology within our environment?

We're gonna look at the risk and the impact of those risks, and then we're gonna look at how we can govern the tool and how we can create the right type of controls to ensure that the data is being collected, maintained, utilized to support the business operations, that we don't have situations where there's third-party reuse, third-party sharing.

And then the last piece of that is the retention piece, making sure that we're being good stewards, maintaining our data for the purposes of various regulatory needs, but then also reducing risk and and not maintaining the data past those retention schedules.

So something we partner with on probably a weekly basis at this point of constantly reviewing the technology and assessing it for to see whether it meets our needs.

See whether we can accept the risk, reduce the risk, and have the right oversight related to the technology that we're bringing in.

So I hinted at this earlier, but the policy controls are extremely important to any major technology platform or initiative.

And so before we even engage in pilots with various technology platforms, we make sure to establish policy controls around those.

And I like to highlight operations manual section 119 because it's publicly available and constantly, you know, our entire operations manual is public information.

And we uh we create the policy controls, the data governance around each technology item, and we publish it into operations manual section 119 before deploying any technology.

So, you know, in an effort to be as transparent as possible, it's all there.

Um just to kind of highlight so in section 119, typically there's each section will define a technology objective.

So it'll say this is the technology that DPD is using, and this is why we're using it, and this is what we hope to accomplish by the use of of this type of technology.

I am it typically defines appropriate use of that data governance and auditing measures that are in place for each different type of technology platform.

I also wanted to highlight that typically these policies are not just uh randomly created by us.

Typically, we are uh in close collaboration with the city attorney's office in drafting all these policies.

Um we we seek other law enforcement organizations and agencies from across the US that have already kind of uh you know created this wheel so we don't have to recreate it, and we're always looking for those best practices to to include in these policies.

So typically um all those these policies were perhaps tweaked by our city attorney's office and our internal policy writing teams.

Um typically the template for the policy came from somewhere else, and we're trying to, you know, uh find those best practices from other agencies that have kind of already paved that path.

Um so I wanted to highlight that.

Uh 119 is always a resource.

If there's any questions about any technology, you know, operational technology that DPD is employing, uh, they're all right there.

Uh, you know, we don't have anything that we are using that is not um uh elaborated upon in section one nineteen.

Okay.

So I wanted to shift into um what was the genesis for having the surveillance technology task force in the first place and talk a little bit about the flock safety update.

Um I'll just start by acknowledging that um I appreciate that in the last week um there's been a lot of anger and frustration from members of city council from other community members about um some of the process by which um this contract was extended and acknowledged that um we obviously um I'll I'll simply just say we have consulted with the city attorney throughout the process and believe that we were well within our charter authority um to do what we have done, um, but um understand that there is a lot of frustration and anger there.

I do want to um really shift the the focus of the conversation and and really talk about the substance of some of the policy changes and the improvements we have made um to the agreement with Flock.

Um and uh some uh a lot of this has already been um discussed in various settings, but um, when we uh back in the spring learned that we were on a national lookup, uh which enabled jurisdictions and uh other states around the country or federal agencies to be searching Denver's data, we turned off access to all jurisdictions uh other than jurisdictions within the state of Colorado.

Um we have as of last week um further limited the access by shutting down any other jurisdiction outside of the Denver Police Department.

Um that is uh Arapaho County, that is Aurora, that is leveling, that is any of the jurisdictions within the state of Colorado today do not have access to Flox data, do not have access or ability to search.

Along with that, uh any federal agent or any federal agency, doesn't matter if they are a member of a local or regional task force, they do not have access to Denver's data or Denver system as of now.

Um what will happen is uh if there are local jurisdictions who would like to get access to Denver's system, they will, and some of these discussions have already begun, entered into an MOU with the city of Denver, which would require them to use some of the same standards, policies, and procedures that the Denver Police Department and the city have implemented before they would be granted back access in.

But that has not happened with any jurisdiction yet.

It is currently limited to Denver exclusively.

We have instituted a drop-down menu of limited search reasons that is uh only restricted to certain criminal conduct that is uh either Denver specific or uh or uh state law criminal conduct.

There was uh concern that we shared that we heard from members of the community on the task force, that when you have an open-ended search option, um you can put in whatever you want as a reason for a search, and uh when some of the big audits came out, it was clear that the some of those search regions were very, very vague.

And so making sure that it's a very specified drop-down search menu of criminal conduct within Denver within uh within the state of Colorado, that's another safety measure that we put in place.

Um, we have also made sure that because there are state laws and local regulations around no sort of uh no sort of um compliance or uh criminal uh searching for anything related to immigration enforcement or reproductive health care, that uh any any type of search that is at all um potentially related to either of those two things is um completely prohibited within the Denver system now.

Uh there has also been a hundred thousand dollar penalty that will be included in the contract that would be payable by Flock for any improper disclosure of Denver's data, and then an automatic opt-out of new programs or technologies until we review and expressly agree to these new technologies to address some of the concerns about um some of uh the new technologies being rolled out, us being automatically opted in, us being maybe unaware of the full implications.

Um, so those are uh some of the safety improvements that we've made uh to the system so far.

Thank you.

Uh can everyone see this map?

We have it in logic are as well.

So yeah.

So, okay, great.

First of all, I want to thank our talented data police analysts for creating the map.

I don't know if anyone has tried to move arrows and text box within a PDF.

It is one of the most aggravating things on earth.

So I thank our experts for helping us.

I want to be clear outside of the ancillary issues surrounding the Flock system, the Denver Police Department believes strongly that the investigative efficacy of the Flock system is very high.

This map shows that the Flock system has been used to investigate, arrest, and prosecute the most serious crimes against Denverites in every single council district.

This map shows every time it's been used for a sex crime, a non-fatal shooting, or a homicide, January 1st through September 9th, January 1st, 2024 through September 2025.

And I just want to zoom in a bit on just five specific cases to communicate the value of the system to the human beings who are representative, represented in these statistics.

In council district eight.

There was a serial rapist going between Denver and Aurora, targeting victims.

We were able to use the flock system to put the suspect at the scenes of the crime, then use its real-time apprehensive system to dispatch our fugitive unit as soon as we had the warrant, sharing that information between both Denver and Aurora.

In March of 2025, in Council District 3, a West High School student was shot whilst parked outside the school.

The Flock system was used to create the crime bulletin that was disseminated that led to the positive ID of the vehicle, and three days later to the arrest of the shooter.

And this is a case we wouldn't have made without Flock because the suspects changed the license plate.

It was only through the Flock vehicle ID system where we're able to generate that crime bulletin and push it out to the community that led to the tip.

In council district nine, March 1st, 2025, a dispute over a lane change on I 70 at Brighton Boulevard led to a road rate shooting where the victim was able to get the license plate, communicate that to dispatch, and within 42 minutes, District 5 patrol officers were able to locate the suspect, pull him over without incident at 38th in Quebec using the Flock real-time alert system.

In council district 11, in April 2025, at 38th in Odessa, the system was used to investigate and arrest a murder suspect.

After an argument, the suspect shot and killed the victim who was driving a vehicle.

The vehicle had two small kids, it continued driving, it was under power.

The two kids were ejected from this vehicle.

Flock was used to place the suspect at the scene.

And unlike other systems, it patrol officers were able to log in, access that information, communicate before detectives were even available on scene to communicate what car it was and where it's going.

And that arrest was made using the real-time system.

Finally, in council district four, at Hamden in Yosemite in August, a motorcycle was intentionally rammed, pushed into oncoming traffic in what became a murder investigation.

Flock helped prove that the act was intentional by showing that the suspect was following the victim for an extended piece of time.

Then we were able to use that information, go back and collect shell casings to prove that the suspect not only rammed the victim but beforehand was shooting at the victim.

There was multiple sources of information who gave differing accounts of the suspect vehicle, and we actually had other people detained forcefully.

But it was using the flock system in real time, we were able to go backwards briefly and identify the right people and let those other people go.

And it's one of the major crimes analysts said, if nothing else, communicate this.

Not only does it generate these positive leads in the most highlight crimes against people, but it also clears the false leads.

Um thank you, Jake.

Um, you know, I I think it's really important.

I think, to put specific names, uh, incidents uh to the success of the system, um, but to maybe go out to more of a uh macro level opponents of the flock uh LPR system uh claiming the effectiveness uh of the tool can be measured at a mere four percent, and that is the reported auto thefts recovered through the use of that system.

And now we can I think debate the accuracy of that number.

The truth is that we invested in Flock with the assistance of a couple of current uh city council members to address our auto theft problem, which at the time was the highest auto theft rate in the country.

We have since significantly decreased our auto theft rate using a number of tactics, quite honestly, but uh but ALPRs were a large part of that strategy.

Um but what we learned during the pilot was that it was also successful in helping us address our other uh crime challenges.

In particular, homicides have dropped as a historic at a historic rate, as I think many people know, our clearance rate has also increased 8% during the test period from 79% to 87%, which is well above the national average of 58%.

Investigators credit Flock with assisting in the arrest of nine homicide suspects during uh this pilot period.

I recognize there are valid and legitimate concerns of how surveillance technology if misused could greatly impact uh and affect public trust, but when murders go unsolved, research has proven that there is quite a significant emotional, economic, and civic toll, not to mention a degradation of public trust.

Bluntly, uh Flock has generated countless leads and murders and nonfatal shootings, sex assaults, and other violent crimes that otherwise wouldn't have been solved or solved as quickly, and I would submit that we have a moral duty to exhaust all lawful efforts in order to find justice for victims.

Now, you know, the the quote up there is uh everybody counts.

That comes from fictional investigator by the name of Michael Bosch, who says that everybody counts or nobody counts.

And to me, uh what that says is that clearing cases, finding justice for victims means something.

Uh, each unsolved violent crime isn't just another incident without closure, it's actually a life.

The system has in effect failed to count, and every time we bring justice to one person or one family, reaffirm we reaffirm that every life in the city matters equally, regardless of neighborhood, background, or circumstance.

The Flock ALPR system has repeatedly proven its ability to fulfill that creed, and I believe we owe it to the people of the city to maintain its use with the appropriate guide rails.

And I'll just quickly um echo um part of what the chief said that um I think as evidenced by the last week and um some of the discussions that have taken place, um, this is a really hot button issue and understandably so.

Um, I think that when you are at a point in time in the country where the federal government is acting and the way it's acting, people at the local level are understandably and legitimately concerned and scared.

Um, and I want to just recognize that all of us, um, the mayor included hear those concerns and frankly care on those concerns.

Um there is going to be any number of legitimate disagreements and questions around this company in particular, it's technology and how it's used, um, how it was rolled out, and then kind of feature state things that we're gonna do, not just with license plate readers, uh, but with surveillance technologies generally.

Um, we look forward to having that substantive discussion.

Um, I am really looking forward to hearing the feedback, hearing the questions.

Um as I said, it is a um is a really tough issue.

Um, and uh I appreciate the the time and the attention that you all as council members have given to it thus far, that the community has given to it.

Um, and uh just want to thank everyone, but also just remind remind folks that um there are going to be process disagreements, there are going to be specific policy disagreements, um, but when it comes to the values of protecting the residents of this city um and making sure that they are both safe, but also that their civil liberties and their privacy is being respected.

That's something that everyone around this table and everyone who works in the city at every level share.

Um so just wanted to frame that before opening it up for comments and questions.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Hoffman.

Thank you, Chief Thomas.

Um, our leaders from uh Denver Police Department uh from TS.

Thank you to the task force members that are in the audience.

We know we have Matt Kirsch from the district attorney's office that's here as a guest, sitting in the office, sitting in the the audience.

I wanted to first welcome Council President Sandoval and Council Person Pro Tem to our meeting.

Councilmember Castro, I know that you're online.

I wanted to give you an opportunity to join a queue if you'll like to, so please uh signal in uh messenger and I'll add you to the queue.

Um before we go into um uh comments uh questions from uh council members in a queue.

Why don't I open it up to the three council members that are on the task force?

Um uh councilmember parody, Councilmember Gonzalez Guterres, and Councilmember Flynn for any brief comments you may have, and I'll add you back to the queue after your brief comments.

Um I don't I didn't notice if you what order you set our names in.

Councilmember Parody, I was going to terris and council member.

I was looking too many things at once.

Um yeah, by way of comments about the task force, which um I thought was the subject of the presentation, just so people know the slides that we've seen in here today haven't been shown to the task force.

So this was a new substantive presentation.

If we're talking about the task force, um I just want to quickly outline sort of what's happened with it.

We first met um towards the end of August, not in the spring.

So it took time to put that task force together.

We did that collaboratively, but it was many months before the task force was actually able to get together and meet.

So we met on um August 22nd for the first time.

I think we've met five times now.

Um the first session was just kind of introductory and a brief overview of Flock from DPD.

The second session, um, Councilmember Gonzalez Guterres and I asked to give an additional overview with information that we'd been collecting since the spring, which we circulated to all of council in an email recently, so you all have that.

Um then there was a meeting where we were asked to sort of list perceived risks of Flock, which we were a little hobbled because there's never been an agenda sent in advance, so we never know what the topic's gonna be going in.

Um and we've honestly started to lose some of the participation.

We we tapped into a few national experts, someone from the Georgetown Center on Law and Privacy, who's a professor who looks totally at surveillance technology from a legal and tech point of view, and someone from the electronic freedom foundation out of California who's also an expert.

We've had trouble keeping and attending because they don't know what's happening.

They're sort of like, why am I on this Denver task force?

There's never an agenda.

And so that's been a little difficult to sort of keep asking people to come that we reached out to and um and invited.

Um that so we did this risk listing exercise, didn't get a chance for people who weren't there to add to that or fill that in after the fact.

Um then we had another presentation that we had requested about um fourth amendment, where um our representative from the DA's office and also um our chief municipal public defender, Colette Tibet, um, presented Fourth Amendment case law.

Um, and then we had a presentation from tech services, but didn't have a lot of follow-up questions to that answered.

And then we had a meeting where we went back to that risk list.

Um, and again, didn't get in advance, didn't get afterwards.

So it's a good task force.

I don't actually think the meetings have been difficult.

I think they've been productive, but only within what's possible when you don't have any heads up about what we're even doing, any schedule, any agenda.

Um at the outset, um, I know Councilmember Gonzalez Guterres said a fair bit of this.

I sent out a proposal that asked if we could fill out a quick Google Google form and have task force members say what their expertise is, first of all, because people don't know each other, um, and also what they would like presentations on.

And solicit basic follow-up questions because the topic is so dense that was never done.

I asked for a shared folder where we would have um the DPD operations manual, because again, not everyone's even from Denver, all of the contracts with Flock to date, the um actual audit logs of all of the searches, which were sent around to all of council and to some open records act requesters, um, redacted as far as all searches other than immigration related searches.

So those are the logs that show every search that's ever been done of Denver's plate data since we've been on all these different networks.

Um, and we still, we haven't, the only version of those we ever got, uh all the searches are redacted, and the users are redacted.

So you can't look for patterns among users, you can't look for kind of the vague searches.

And that wasn't actually what I had asked for or what even the Open Records Act requesters had asked for.

That was um something DPD did because of the volume of data, which I understand, but again, it's been now, I mean, we're going on a year of this, honestly.

We first heard about this last February.

So I just you can't have a meaningful task force without being able to look and see what's been searched for.

And you can't have meaningful council oversight with being able to look and see what's been searched for.

And I know there have been emails again the last couple weeks.

I reached out proactively and offered to um offered some terms of like, could we just look at searches that are from jurisdictions really close to us so we can see people that are more likely to find a plate in Denver, what they're searching for, plus federal, you know, different ways to narrow it down so the data would be easy.

I've offered to go in and inspect the data.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.

Um that should have been shared with all task force members.

They they still don't have any copy of the logs.

Um council got that, but the task force members have not.

Then there's another kind of audit, which is these other tech audits that are supposedly done.

Um you'll all remember that back last February, um, we were told, first of all, we were told that these MOUs that these folks are now describing entering into, we were told we already had those when this came to safety committee.

We were told that other jurisdictions had agreed to that.

They have not.

That's one of the changes that's now in this supposed, you know, the uh proposed new contract extension.

Task force has never been shown the new contract extension that's proposed, or even asked to weigh in on those potential terms.

The task force was never even told about those potential terms.

So task force members would have heard about it now from the media, but it was not presented to the task force.

The task force has never been asked a question to give feedback on.

So it's been a good conversation, but it has not in any way influenced um any of what's being described today.

Um, all of that material not having been shared.

We also have asked for the number of logins and who has logins.

Um, never been given that.

Finally learned last week that 1300 people have logins to the Denver system.

So that would be most of our officers.

I don't know how many of those are not Denver officers other than the FBI agents that apparently were finally cut off last week.

No one's ever looked at the search um history for those FBI agents, as far as I know.

I asked the mayor that he said no one has.

Um, and then I don't believe tech service has actually audited this technology since it came online in 2023.

And I just want to make sure everyone heard what Mr.

Hoffman said to us, which is that we were placed on the national network without our knowledge.

So Flock put our data on the national network without our knowledge.

I would have thought we would want some kind of accountability for that, and then we at least would have wanted to what that means is that we didn't audit that technology because we didn't know we were on there.

So we've asked for follow-up from tech services with copies of the audits.

We had been asking for them for those again since back last spring.

We started asking for that again after they came in.

We've never gotten the audits.

We've never been told clearly what tech services has done after their initial 2023 audit.

Um, and so I'm not, I just really think that this is the kind of information that if you're gonna have a meaningful task force and you're gonna use all these people's very valuable time, um, that you would want that information.

And I'm I'm really befuddled about it because it's a strong task force, and I think we should be using it.

I also want to say there's a few other task force members in the audience.

I see um a representative of the public defender's office, Rachel, who often sits in um as a proxy for a collette.

Um, I see a Naya from the ACLU, I see Kristen from TOCA.

Um, and I don't know if Emily's the task force member, but she's always there.

And then um, and then I think anyone else, Councilmember Watson introduced.

So, right, and we the task force wasn't told when we signed a new drone contract with Flock in August.

I only found out about that from the auditor.

Um, so it just has been it's been very much a self-contained thing.

Um, I also have a lot of substantive questions about everything that you all just presented, but I'll leave that because I'm right now commenting on the task force.

So that's my thinking and feedback about that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And the items that you're listing that you have requested, um, if you're comfortable with sharing that's just so it's clear.

I mean, it's a narrative of what you stated, but if if you're comfortable with sharing, kind of these already asked of the task force.

Um that email that I sent that I sent to all of council, I know it was long, it's in there.

Thank you, Councilmember Perry.

Okay, Councilmember Gazovsky Terras, and then Council Member Flynn.

I mean, Councilwoman Farody, I think covered um the majority of the, you know, both the good and some of the concerns that you've had um with the task force itself.

I was really excited that we were doing this, and um I remember the reason that we did this was because of the Flock contract and the concerns that were raised at the time, and it was the way in which that we were going to address not just Flock but surveillance tech as a whole, uh that's being utilized by our law enforcement.

And so my understanding of the task force was that we would then be working together to come up with policy recommendations to come up with what is, you know, maybe what needs to be in the contracts, what guardrails do we need to put in place to ensure that people are protected, knowing that it is very likely that the use of this technology will continue.

We may not all agree that the technology should be utilized, you know, even though members of the task force may not all agree on that fact, but I think what they do agree on is that we want to make sure that people are um not having their rights violated, and that we are protecting also some of our most vulnerable community members that unknowingly become um targets because of this technology.

And so I would agree with Councilwoman Parity's assessment around some of the the lack of um us being able to have more robust conversations and have like action being taken in the committee.

Um and I think that is something that has driven at least um I'll speak for myself and and I guess I could also speak for councilwoman parity, um, us to really re-evaluate and based on council member feedback, um, looking at you know what needs to be um potentially put forth in ordinance, and so that's something that we are starting to explore because we recognize and and hearing feedback from our colleagues that we can't just sit around and keep waiting and keep allowing um decisions to be made um that are outside of uh the task force.

And I understand that there is executive authority, and I understand that there were um conversations had outside of that task force, but I was very um concerned, and and I want to restate because I had heard somebody say that there was frustration and anger.

I don't wouldn't characterize it as anger for myself.

I would say it's frustration and feeling disrespected.

Um, that we brought together these group of experts on all sides of the issue on all sides to have these conversations to um to to mitigate the concerns and for uh a decision and a closed room conversation to happen for us to then not know about it.

Um, you know, myself, Councilman Parity and Councilman Flynn were notified um the day before the announcement was made, and that's fine, but we also you know know that we're respecting the time and energy that the task force members are taking um and providing the information.

I will say that I had asked initially very early on about had we know had we talked to anybody in tech services, knowing that they might be experts when it comes to data privacy, they might be experts when it comes to these technologies, and and at the time it was like, well, we have these other people who will serve as that, and now we've brought them in, which I'm very grateful that we do have them, and that was recognized finally that we should have those folks at the table.

Um, and so I you know, I appreciate the dialogue that we have.

I think um I think it's important that we continue to do this work.

I'm not I'm not ready to throw anything out, and I'm I am hopeful um that we can address because it is about uh surveillance technology as a whole, it's not just about Flock.

And so I want to be very clear.

So I felt like this was very targeted, this presentation, if I'm being honest, um, because I know we have this issue of Flock and I know it's there, but I felt like we've spent a lot of time on that when we have the whole entire bucket of surveillance technology, and as councilwoman parity, the learning knowledge of that Flock is providing us with drones for free is also concerning drones as first responders.

Um, and so I think more than anything, I think going forward with this with the task force is making sure we have transparency and understanding of what it is it that we're actually charged with if it's not to provide recommendations and not to have a feedback loop.

Um, instead, is it just information that is then going to um the executive branch to our administration and then decisions are being made without any kind of collaboration?

True collaboration.

And that's what I'm hopeful for going forward.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Councilmember Gazas Katares.

Councilmember Flynn.

Thank you.

Um I want to share that I agree with a lot of the frustration that's been expressed.

It's just been a very long slow slog almost.

And a lot of it has to do with, and I think uh councilmember we it's been concentrated on flocks simply because that's what that's the big elephant in the room.

And so we've spent a lot of time dealing with that before moving on.

So I agree that the purpose of the task force is to come up with policy recommendations, not just to provide feedback.

But there's been so much, you know, what about this, what if that, that we've not been able to get our feet out of the mud.

I feel like I'm running in molasses sometimes, like a dream, the recurring dream.

Okay, uh, and so uh, but I but I reckon I want to also recognize that when the council voted down uh the contract extension in May, that the mayor's office requested us to do that, and they disclosed at the time that the mayor did intend to sign an extension up to uh right under the threshold, and that that was likely to take it through October.

And so when October was coming and we weren't making much progress, that's when the mayor and flock constructed this extension that we learned about.

Um, and I do want to acknowledge that the way it's structured appears to contain a lot of what we've been asking for.

It's Denver only right now.

We don't opt into any, we don't get any of the automatic upgrades in technology.

We opt in affirmatively or we reject it.

Um it's if any metro agency wants to share that data, they have to sign an MOU that agrees to our conditions.

So I want to acknowledge that what the what the administration put together for this no-cost extension incorporates a lot of what we were talking about.

I just wish we had been able to finish our work uh before we got to that point.

But I do want to acknowledge and I do want to put it out there that it was a unanimous vote to reject it.

Uh, but that didn't mean that all of us were gonna vote no that night.

I voted no because we were asked to vote now and form this task force.

I wish it were happening a little faster.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Flynn.

Um, whenever we have a virtual uh participation, I'll just try to make sure to the council member that is virtual is the the council member that's virtual, that he's participating.

So we have a queue.

But Councilmember Cashman, I wanted to see if you wanted to jump in with your question first, and then we have and we have listed as you listed as Member Sawyer, Council President Sandoval, and Council Member Alvidras.

Thank you, uh committee chair, appreciate it and appreciate the uh discussion so far.

What concerns me the most, um uh a few years ago, uh, forgetting his last name, uh, Matt was uh chief uh Chief Thomas's right hand at the time, uh, came to me, and I believe Councilwoman Sawyer with a plan that they wanted to uh uh hang eleven license plate reader cameras along Colorado Boulevard, and it was presented that it would be looking for stolen cars or uh amber alert victims, something similar to that.

There was absolutely no mention of a national network of any sort, and that lack of transparency continues uh through today, in my view, um uh I'm as frustrated with with this process as any process I've been involved with in 10 years.

I fully believe uh these cameras uh can provide great assistance uh in crime solving, but um I'm I'm getting the feeling that uh there's an attempt to minimize the um the dangers that this the flock system uh carries.

Uh I I'm afraid I have no trust in that company at all as being uh interested in protecting the privacy of our residents.

So I I appreciate uh the opportunity to comment and I look forward to the uh discussion continuing.

Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you so much, McCashman.

And council members, I just put the queue again in the last listing on the message uh in um messenger.

This is the current queue that we have.

Um if you would like to be added back to the queue, please let me know.

But I have Councilmember Sawyer, Councilmember Sanibal, Councilmember Albidras, Councilmember Parity, Councilmember Gonzalez Guterres, Councilmember Flynn, then Council President Pro Tem Romero Campbell.

It's all in Messenger, so I'll follow through that list.

Councilman Sawyer, you're first.

Thanks, Mr.

Chair.

Um, thanks you guys, really appreciate you being here.

Um wanna just talk two things.

First one is Flock.

I am thankful, grateful and very proud to have been one of the council members that allowed the um pilot of this technology to exist in District 5.

I want to be very clear.

We were asked by um a former administration to be the pilot for in District 5 and District 6 along Colfax and Colorado Boulevard.

It was in the new administration in July of 2023 when suddenly and without uh conversation from us, um, 111 flock cameras went up across the city.

So we are talking about two very different situations here, right?

A pilot on Colfax and Colorado Boulevard, and the administrative decision by the executive branch to put 111 cameras up across the city.

Um, so I want to make that point first.

I also want to say I am fully supportive of having our flock cameras.

Um I don't actually, and I said this to Councilmember Parity the other day.

I'm not married to Flock.

I don't, I don't care what ALPR technology company we use, ALPR technology itself has been an extraordinary asset for the city of Denver in closing the gap between the number of officers we have and the number of officers that we would need to have to do this work and achieve those same results in District 5, and I can tell you uh with 95% curtain uh 95% confidence at a 2.4% margin of error, the vast majority of residents in District 5 have repeatedly told me since 2020 that their number one concern is community safety.

This is a technology that closes that gap and enhances community safety, and I am fully supportive of that, and I am fully supportive of the police department using that, and so are most of my residents.

Not all, but most of my residents.

So I want to be very clear about my stance on Flock.

I agree with Councilmember Flynn.

I voted that contract down in April because the mayor's office asked us to with the understanding that we would look at um privacy and data concerns and come up with a resolution for that.

Um do I like the way the mayor's office went through extending this contract so that it stays under the $500,000 amount?

No, I'm not in love with the process, but it is also they're right.

They have not done anything illegal here, and I want to be very clear about that too.

Um I also want to say, and I have said this to many of my residents who have come to me um to talk about this, the flock piece in particular.

Flock is the tip of the iceberg, man.

Let's be real.

If you carry a cell phone, you should be way more concerned about the information your cell phone is providing to apps than you are about flock.

Stop it.

I have Life 360, Life 360 is selling my data to insurance companies and my 16-year-old daughter's data, driving data to insurance companies.

You can look this up online.

There are lots of articles about it.

There's a huge class action lawsuit that's going on right now with Life 360.

Have I deleted Life 360?

No.

Because there is value in what Life 360 offers me, as long as there are the appropriate safeguards in place.

And that is how I feel about all surveillance technology in Denver, not just ALPR technology.

This is drones.

This is a ton of different things.

AI technology is here to stay, and we don't even know the tip of the of what it does.

So what we need, what I have been asking for since April when we had this conversation, is a comprehensive data sharing, information, privacy ordinance in our city.

There are two really great examples of it out there.

The first one is California, the second is Virginia.

They already exist.

We do not need to reinvent the wheel on this.

And what I feel very frustrated about is that we are here at the end of October, and nothing has been done about that.

Whether it is council, this is a legislative branch of government, this is our job to write legislation.

So whether it is council who should do that, or whether it is the executive branch's policy division who should do that, I don't really care.

Someone do it.

I am over this.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um I just want to be clear that I, when in your manual, the operations manual 19 section three for the section 19.03 automated license plate reader system.

I have never read that before, so thank you for saying that.

I've been sitting here skimming, that's what I do.

And so I agree with your intent statement.

We do.

I will say that I also, the intent statement that the goal.

Policy, I can't remember where it's at right now.

It's on one of your slides.

I think is really lackluster.

I don't think that right now, if I were to take that to my executive MBA professor, who I've been actually working with this, like going back and forth on, who is a subject matter expert in technology and teaches all around the world.

Um his name is Romedio.

I would say if I presented that right now in my executive MBA, your goal, it would be, I would probably not get a very good grade.

So your goal is twofold.

Studying the current state of surveillance technology, oversight and regulation in Denver, and proposing new rules, regulations, and ordinances to strengthen our policies.

I think it's to what I would want a goal to be is to strengthen public trust by establishing clear, responsible, and transparent standards for how surveillance technology are evaluated, governed, and used to ensure the protection of residents' data and civil liberties, right?

So I think words for me as a legislator, words really matter.

And that's why I'm looking at your or your um, what I'm doing is I'm comparing your manual, which you're using as the foundation, and the goal.

I don't think they're aligned because your manual is really well written.

So a couple questions that I have are, and I'm just gonna have to spit them out because there's too many, and then we'll come back and then I'll.

Clearly delineated.

And then, um, out of that, what do you all actually need from that data to solve the crimes?

Because oftentimes extra data is collected when you have a technology and you don't actually need all of that information to solve the crimes that you are actively solving.

I really do truly believe that this has helped you solve crimes.

It the numbers don't lie.

One thing that doesn't lie are numbers.

They'll tell you the truth.

And your numbers have gone down of stolen vehicles.

What do the internal logs look like?

Is there a full audit trail of every action taken in the platform?

My question to Flock has been: how and where is the data stored?

That's not a question for you because we've handed our data over, and he told me the CEO told me someone just deletes it every 30 days.

And I said, Well, where's the audit for that?

And he was like, I can't what?

And I said, So show me that that happens.

He goes, you just have to trust me.

And I said, No, no, no, no.

It's not my job to trust you.

It's my job to verify that you're doing with the what you're doing, what you say with the data.

I've never seen that.

I've asked for it from the CEO and his chief financial officer or tech officer.

So we need to know that.

And is there a full audit trail of every action taken in the platform, even on their side?

Right?

Not necessarily our side.

We also need to protect, because we're getting that once they get the data, unless they do blockchain technology, because it's a cloud storage technology and they're not using blockchain technology.

We don't know what they're doing on their side of the data.

So we need to audit their side as well as our side.

When will this, will this data be used by a company to train AI or other situations other than directly related to DPD?

So because they own our data for 30 days, are they using that data to use training for other entities?

Are they using that data that our data to train the homeland security?

Are they using that data to train other like ICE agents right now?

That's our data.

It could be.

We don't know the answer to that.

I've asked.

He has not gotten back that to me.

And then who is in who is accountable to ensure the data privacy?

Is it DPD or is it the vendor?

Another thing that I have been looking into is this technology called IV and V.

Technology IV and V, it's standard across government contracts, and IV and V in tech contracts.

It's called independent verification and validation.

And in the context of technology contracts, especially large software IT infrastructure or system implementation projects, IV and B refers to hiring an independent third party, not the developer or the client's internal team, to objectively obsess whether the product is being correctly verified verification and the right product is being built, reduce risk, ensure compliance, and provide independent oversight.

This happens all the time at the federal government when you're working with outsider contracts.

I have talked about that.

I think that needs to be set in as a safeguard.

So those are my questions, and then my question when we go back to the goal.03, section one, section E, under E, the first line states clearly the following uses of LPRs are explicitly prohibited to provide to violate any constitutional rights or federal, state, or local laws, and we have a local law that says we will not have anything to do with ICE when it comes to our that's our local law.

We have a state law, they already violated that.

They violated our manual, the company did, without telling you that what's in your manual, they violated.

I didn't even know that when I met with the CEO, and number two in the slide, section two, it says the institution institution, a drop-down menu of limited resource research search reasons.

I was on a meeting in May, like early April.

They had told me that was built out.

So I said, show me.

And it was their chief technology officer.

It wasn't.

It wasn't built out.

And they said they would build it out.

And I said, How long will it take?

And when I met with the CEO in my office, I told him your chief technology officer told me something that was built out when I went to ask him to perform it, because I had met with my professor, I met with a lot of people.

I've looked really into this.

They said to have them demonstrate.

And it wasn't.

And he lied to me.

And then I will finish with this.

The CEO sat in my office and said he inherently trusts homeland security.

He inherently entrusts the president.

And he inherently and trusts ICE to make the correct decision.

So as a Latina, I took a deep breath.

And I said with all due respect, my husband, when my son, Alexander Sandoval and Senius with the last name Sandoval and Senius, got our driver's license.

We had to train my son if he got pulled over by a police officer how to say be respectful, because if there's implicit bias that has historically plagued the all police departments across the nation, not just yours, chief.

And you've done a great job of breaking that down.

And we know historically brown and black people have been hurt, killed, and there is a history of violence towards them when it comes to certain police departments across the nation.

And I told the CEO, that must be nice to have the type of privilege that you do.

It must nice be nice to never have to worry about if you were gonna get pulled over when you were cruising because your skin was brown, and something might happen to you, and you might have to.

I do not inherently trust ICE right now, because they are coming for my people.

They are coming for my workers at La Casita, who I have known my whole entire life, who are US residents.

So I want to be very clear, super clear.

I appreciate your manual.

Let's follow your manual.

And let's find a company that will respect our manual and not disrespect our manual and just decide that they have technology and they're gonna just use it.

Technology changes so quickly, we have to be on our toes, and we have to have a company that is going to communicate with us and clearly respect our values as a city.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Council President.

Um we have uh six folks in the queue.

I just want to let council member knows we got 25 more minutes.

So we're gonna walk through each person.

If you have questions, like what council president Sandoval did, we're gonna keep track of those and make sure we get back to folks on those answers.

Um, because we may not be able to get square from what council member Alvidras, Councilmember Perry, Councilman Gonzalez Gutierrez.

Thank you, committee chair.

Um I'll just run through my things as well.

I'll start with um the fact that you're this may or may not be a violation of the charter is wrong.

This is evading council's authority and deleting our jobs to represent our constituents and not get a vote on this contract.

So just based on that alone, I'm disgusted by this whole situation.

I also have a question for our legal team, which they can answer later.

If we are collecting this data, can it be subpoenaed by the federal government or other municipalities?

What about the tech analysis?

You do a tech analysis and the technology evolves.

Tomorrow there's AI, maybe yesterday there wasn't, maybe it's in a different capacity.

How are you?

How are you supposed to know that they're changing the way that they use their technology?

Um, that is a concern for me.

Uh another concern is the retention schedule.

This new contract, what new agreements, what are the details?

Is it still 30 days of holding every innocent person's data?

Um, I'd like to know that.

Um, I'd like to know more from the task force experience of what their experience was and hear from them.

Um, I also want to know this 100,000 that we're gonna get.

Who gets it?

The people that are hurt, the family that has guns drawn on them because their vehicle was wrongly identified, or do we, the city, and then we have to pay out a settlement because we violated their rights for a million.

I don't understand how that is um going to make up for the experience of being wrongly identified.

Um I also wanna reiterate that we have a crime lab that is underfunded and has open positions that are not being filled.

Maybe if we did that, we could solve crimes.

The murder, the attempted murders that I know of in my district haven't been solved, and this flock camera system isn't solving them either.

Um I believe the pilot should have been turning it off and then show me that this is really still as effective as it was, because I think there was a lot of other things that led to car thefts going down, including passed by this body.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Councilmember Albidas, Councilmember Perry, Councilman Gonzalez, Perez, Councilmember Flynn.

Um, yeah, so I the first thing I wanted to ask is um, I'm gonna ask this of the chief, and I'm trying to be quick, but I this is a question that I would like to ask you in person.

I really wanna understand how you learned that we had been put on the national network and how you felt about that.

Because I just, we didn't hear that DPD actually didn't know we were on the national network until this September.

And so there was this, you know, three to four month period where we understood that um you all had removed us from the national network, that you then didn't confirm to counsel that we had been on it until a couple months after removing us.

Um, there was not a lot of transparency about that with the public.

It's a big deal.

I just, and so then to hear that you all had not been aware that we were on it, I was really gobsback by that because we were on it for like a year, and we know that there were those 1400 searches for immigration that were done around the country.

No idea whether any of them caught anyone who happened to be driving through Denver.

So I just would really like to hear from you about that, please.

So, you know, obviously our primary focus was the value that this ALPR system had in Denver and in the metro area, recognizing that you know that that the data shared between jurisdictions where we we share uh suspects of crime, um, that was our primary focus, and and we um recognized the the value of being able to search Nash nationally as well, but it wasn't until um questions began to be asked that we that we really understood the depth at which our data was being shared outside of Denver and outside of the state of Colorado, and and from a from a um uh a crime solving perspective, um, I wasn't necessarily threatened by that, but recognizing the differences in um in political opinion and the differences in how different governments uh respect um you know the rights of immigrants and things like that.

I did begin to become concerned and recognize that the best thing to do was to close off that access to everyone outside of the state of Colorado.

Okay, thank you for that.

I just have a quick note about that though, which is that there's no legal standard to search the database, and so I know that if an officer is searching, hopefully it's because they suspect someone of a crime, but they could be searching for a witness.

I mean, and it's only in their own minds, it's not there's no warrant, there's no not even a reasonable suspicion type requirement at all.

So I I don't think it's fair to characterize everyone who's been searched for as necessarily being a suspect of a crime.

I mean, we just don't know that.

Um so um the other question that I have that I haven't I've asked this before, I haven't been able to get an answer for.

Has anyone asked Flock?

Because we've been so focused on this very searchable database for obvious reasons because it's just wide open and out there for the world.

We haven't been as focused on um all of the other legal routes that people can still get our data, even now that it's only restricted to Denver being able to search it on the database, um, because we've now created this 30-day, you know, um repository of our images.

Flock has a whole section of its website that um walks jurisdictions through um how to do a subpoena for another jurisdiction's jurisdiction's images, um so evidence requests.

I'm sure they get that all the time, just like Google and Apple and all those.

That you do have to have, you know, um a warrant for.

But that could, for example, be um Texas looking for information to um convict women of having traveled to Colorado for abortions.

I would be almost surprised at this point if that hasn't happened.

So we've created those images, those are legally obtainable.

Have any of you asked Flock how many subpoenas it has gotten, which it responded to with Denver images in the time that we've been on the network?

We have not okay.

I would really like you to ask that question.

Okay.

If I if I can just quickly chime in on that point, Councilwoman Parody.

Um in the original contract and it's carried through.

There are sections that um Yeah, I know what they say.

Yeah, and it but it doesn't give a notification requirement to us.

Um, and uh please continue.

Yeah, I'll I'll circle back, but how um at least part of when I've looked at those contracts, how I've interpreted it is that we would have to be notified as the jurisdiction where the data would be coming from and essentially be made parties to whatever that case is.

Um so there have been different versions of this contract, um, but I am picturing the exact clause you're talking about, and I remember being astounded because it didn't have a notification requirement.

So we should double check that.

The third question that I have, and that's it for me is um whether these there's three terms of the contract that um are really disturbing to me, and I want to know if any of these have been renegotiated in the new contract that may ever have been signed.

Actually, I'd like to know if it's been signed, but um, those terms are um section 5.3 disclosure of footage during the retention period.

So during that 30 days, Flock may access use, preserve and or disclose the footage to law enforcement agencies, government officials, and/or third parties if Flock has a good faith belief that such access is necessary to prevent or address security privacy, et cetera.

Would love to know if they've ever utilized that term and if that's still in there.

Section 4.2, customer-generated data.

Flock may use, reproduce, modify, display, and distribute agency generated data for the purpose of providing Flock services.

I don't know that that includes our plate images.

I don't exactly know what that definition includes.

Is that still in there?

What does that term do?

And then 4.3 on the anonymized data.

This I know is still in there, or I assume is still in there unless we've renegotiated it, but I would be I would not imagine the Flock would ever give this term up.

Flock has the right to collect, analyze, and anonymize agency data and agency generated data to create aggregated data to perform services and improved technologies, including the training and machine learning algorithms AI.

And the city grants Flock a non-exclusive worldwide perpetual royalty-free right to use and distribute such aggregated data.

So my concern there, and I just want to say this again is that from a Fourth Amendment point of view, even if this is anonymized, what that means is that our Denver data is being used to train AI to understand how people move around the city and to understand how they move around the city by neighborhood, um, to do things like track cars that are moving in tandem.

So even anonymized data is going to have tremendous impacts on undermining our privacy.

Um, and Flock has a permanent license to continue to generate it.

I also am curious what happened during the four-month period when we had no contract in place from February to July.

Those are my questions.

Thanks, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Councilman Parity.

Councilmember if I can just and Councilwoman, um, I'm happy to follow up on the other specific requests.

But um, on I believe you said it was section 4.3 that talks about the anonymized data, um, that is something that um we have told Flock we will be opting out of that that part of the contract should be removed.

Flock has agreed to it.

So I'll confirm that.

But um, we heard that concern in the task force um as using Denver's data to train the AI tool.

Um, so that was a specific provision that we um expressly were had removed or will be having removed from the contract moving forward.

Okay.

Are these negotiations ongoing?

Is that what I'm hearing?

Um I I don't know in the last kind of 24 hours what the end state is, but um, like that term specifically, that that's come up in the last couple days.

In the last couple days, okay, great.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Gonzalez, Councilmember Flynn, um then we have council president for Tem Romero Campbell and Council Member Torres.

Okay, I'll just be really quick.

Some of these things are things that I have asked for already.

Um, and we weren't provided them, but it learned that the reason we were providing them because they weren't didn't exist.

And those are the agreements with um other jurisdictions because we just learned that now there are MLUs being created.

I would like to see a copy of those MOUs, what they look like, what's in them.

I I want the whole copy.

Um, I also would like to see the contract language for this current extension that's happening.

Um, I think all of council should be able to see that as well.

Um, and so those are those are just like two things off the bat that I would I would like to have access to.

Um, I share a lot of the concerns with the current contract language, and I think I had sent over a bunch of that information to DPD um to the mayor's office last May with or just previous May uh 2025 with some recommendations on contract language because to the point that whether or not our data can be released right now, it just um I do remember reading councilwoman parody that it says um that they must notify us, but that's it, right?

And whether or not they release the data is the question, and I don't know that there's enough um precautions in place to address that.

When I asked the block CEO, who I also had an opportunity to meet with as well and had a lot of shared a lot of the same concerns that council president shared from that meeting, um, I asked him if that if the if the president um if the president of uh issued an executive order requesting that data be released to ICE to Border Patrol, like did that, would they release the data?

He could not answer that question.

He just said we would notify you if we receive such a request.

And I asked him if he would honor an administrative subpoena or a judicial subpoena, and he didn't understand what I was asking him.

So that's also extremely problematic.

Um, and he even had an attorney with him, and they couldn't answer that question.

So I would wholeheartedly agree that, and I did, you know, let the mayor know this when I had the opportunity to speak with him, that I do not believe they are trustworthy partners, they're not a trustworthy vendor.

Um, if you know we needed to explore other options, and we should have that conversation.

Um not that I necessarily agree with it at all, but I I also understand like where where the where the cards lie.

Um so um I guess that that's what I would like to see.

I'll just stop there.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Councilman.

Council President for Merrill Campbell next.

Thank you.

Um I don't know if this is possible to do, but I think it would be beneficial.

I brought it up in our brief earlier.

Um is it possible for members of the task force or members of council to go to the uh the uh uh real time crime center, I think that's the right one, and observe the use of the system and how it's used, so that we can understand firsthand, or I don't know if we have to sign an MDA or if that violates someone's privacy on the back end, but I think it would be beneficial for us to understand how the thing what it looks like and how it's used in real time.

Absolutely.

Um anybody here isn't is invited to the real-time crime center.

I think the flock LPR platform is distributed, right?

So officers are able to use it from their cell phone and whatnot.

So there's a lot of use that we may not be able to see while sitting in the real-time crime center.

But yeah, I absolutely we can definitely you know kind of demonstrate the use of that platform if it would be helpful.

I'd like to I'd like to do that.

That's very nice.

That's it.

Thank you so much, sir.

Uh, Council President Pro Tem and then Council Member Torres.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um thank you for being here and presenting today.

I appreciate my council members' uh my colleagues' questions.

Um, I think that they are spot on and things that we want to know.

Um, my question is more around what's next in this process.

So we have the conversation here.

I've heard that, you know, we have a task force.

When does the task force meet next?

You know, low-hanging fruit, an agenda, and then really focusing on what those goals are because I agree.

I think we do need to have that level of conversation of what is our surveillance policy.

And I think a lot of the questions asked today will get us to making those decisions.

But as a city, I don't see that policy, and really looking forward to the task force to help guide and and help lead that effort.

Um, I think that you know, there, and and in addition to that, those policy recommendations, um, it's very real in the world that we live in today, civil liberties, um, and you know, reproductive health.

Those are things that we definitely want to make sure is protected.

Um, I think we've heard from our, you know, from so many people and in direct experiences with the uh with the agency of Flock uh with that vendor.

I'm trying to think of what to call it, with that vendor, um maybe maybe not the right one for Denver, but how do we find something that does work for us?

But I also think we're we're trying to retrofit what we currently have, and we're not focusing on what our policy is.

And I would really like to know when the task force is going to meet next, um, and how we can use that structure that is currently set, um, that has been set up to really help guide us on figuring out what our policy is and those recommendations moving forward.

Um, I just want to say I appreciate everybody being here and that we get to have this conversation because it feels like it's so overdue.

We've had little touches, we've had emails, um, you know, hallway conversations, but being able to sit around the table and have this discussion, I think is so necessary.

Um, and I will just leave it at that because I know we're running out of time.

Um, but my big question is what's next?

When is the next meeting and where do we go from here?

So thank you for being here.

Let's go to Councilmember Torres and Ms.

Dauphin.

I'll have you at the end.

I'll share a quick comment and but I'll have you kind of share any next steps as far as timelines for the task force.

Maybe after my question, but Councilmember Torres.

Thank you so much.

Um, I do want to um just offer my own um observation that when we were asked to vote this down, I think it was likely to die that night.

So I don't think you had the votes to pass it, even if you had six council members that supported it.

So I just want to be clear about um uh May 5th of earlier this year when the extension came to us and we were asked to vote it down.

Um the other uh the question I have just in looking at the ops um section, what is Boss LPR?

It's a different uh typically it's a vehicle mounted LPR um system, and there's there's a few of those kind of legacy systems that are still in use, but it's just a different vendor.

Well, do we have a contract with them as well?

Yes, we do.

Okay.

Um I'd love to know more about how those interplay with each other, because it looked like it was more of the search side back end.

I don't know if that's exactly what it is, or if it's just a different kind of camera system, which leads me to the question around how we ended up with a sole source contract with Flock.

Um and my assumption, I never asked it, but what was that they were the only vendor out there, but it doesn't sound like they are.

Um, so why wouldn't we be considering or have considered um opening this up to find out who else is out there?

And I say that particularly because it's resonating for me, the conversations that my colleagues have had with uh Flock personnel about their um appropriateness in being a partner for the city.

Um and if there are other vendors out there, because I do think unless asked, they weren't volunteering information that I think was relevant to the concerns that were being raised, um, which is a really frustrating way to have um to understand what's the impact is gonna be.

If you don't ask it in the right way, they're not gonna tell you exactly what the context is, right?

And that's what I feel like we've all experienced in those conversations.

Um, and um, and then so that's one of the sources of frustration.

So I do want to understand like if there are other vendors out there, we should be RFPing this if we're gonna continue to use LPRs.

Um, and then I'll just share when it was presented to me in 2024, um, it was very much foundational to the auto theft auto theft task force.

And my question, Commander Herrera, which was like I felt like was not reaching a full answer.

We didn't have them where we were seeing most auto thefts in my district.

So it wasn't like I feel like it was it wasn't that I was that there was another motivation, I think, for DPD to get it throughout the district, as opposed to where we saw the most auto thefts in district three, which were at Denver Health, which are at Elych's, and instead placed inside neighborhoods.

And so that's just one of the senses that I have that we were presented, I was presented with a picture that's different than I think the way the department wanted to use the technology, which is a different kind of frustration that I have.

But I will just leave open the RFP conversation and the sole source contract.

And just say like that has to be a different, I think, kind of path than us just looking or being presented with a flock extension in 2026.

I think that's gonna be a brick law.

So thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you, Councilmember Torres.

Any responses on that?

I think that's um an opportunity for the administration or anyone to share thoughts.

Um, I'll just say a couple things.

I mean, first of all, the the original uh ALPR programs that we had, I think you were familiar with one.

There was an ALPR that was set up.

I think at 6M Federal, um attached to that uh to that uh traffic signal there.

Um and uh and then we had other um vehicle-affixed uh ALPRs.

There is a constant sort of data dump into a database of you know, amber alerts and stolen vehicles and other things.

I think part of that data dump was like um unregistered vehicles and and also like people that had um license restrictions, but we had officers not um pay attention to those, so they were really focused on the auto thefts, the amber alerts and those kinds of things.

And so that's what the original uh purpose was.

Again, uh, as stated, you know, auto theb was our primary focus for um for the ultimate 111 cameras, and we looked at not necessarily just where auto thefts were occurring, but the but the locations of egress from those locations are so we I think we were strategic about where we put them where people like, for instance, if someone were to steal a car at um at Denver Health or even at DIA, where would the likely uh intersection be that they would that they would cost, and so that's what we kind of use to, you know, we I think we wanted to get the biggest bank for our buck in terms of where we place these particular election plate uh readers, and so um, but certainly here, uh the concerns relative to the vendor, um, you know, understand the frustration as it relates to the um to the task force.

Um we feel like um you know we have been listening to in the task force, and that's what I think a lot of the amendments to the contract.

I think have come for directly from suggestions, recommendations made by the task force.

We recognize too that it wasn't put in place specifically to talk about Flock.

We but because that was the L phone in the room, and because we really recognize that we were close to losing the technology that we wanted to place our focus there.

Certainly, once we cross that hurdle with Flocker, some other vendor as it relates to that particular technology, I think we can widen our lens and and look at how to apply um these processes to other uh you know technology solutions.

So, thank you, Councilmember Torres.

We're coming to the uh the close of the meeting, and so I wanted to first start by saying thank you to um uh Mr.

Hoffman, DPD, the team from um General Services from Tech Tech Services, the members of the task force for your work, the city council members that are on the task force for providing um your feedback as well as um um each member of council.

I just wanted uh to add, I think it is appropriate uh uh Mr.

Hoffman, and obviously we'll we'll council President Um Sandoval and um the task force leadership um will be a part of this discussion, but an interim report from the task force is an appropriate um next step and identifying what that timeline looks like for that interim report, um, no matter what happens with the proposed extension that is out there right now.

I think clarity needs to occur on the task force and what is is happening um I think uh appropriate ask would be um identification if there's an RFP and identification of additional folks um um that are able to take on this work um the council um is going to be voting once this comes back uh I know there are several questions are being asked um we'll look at to see if there's an an opportunity council president for this to come back before the end of the year at some level um we do have other surveillance uh contract pieces that are coming through that's already on the agenda um but we look forward to possibly uh Mr.

Hoffman and team having folks back uh before the end of the year which is always difficult November December is terrible um but with that um I see your hand council members.

There is another presentation I would like for the task force to see the presentation prior to it coming here since the task force is comprised of more people than the folks that are sitting at this table right now I would love for that because that is again true collaboration.

And I think that is appropriate.

So I want to thank everyone for your participation.

There's one item on consent there are no items to vote today.

So this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you all.

Thank you for doing this.