While the South Kingstown Town Council and numerous other Rhode Island towns have voted to cancel their Flock contracts, University of Rhode Island Public Safety continues to use license plate reader cameras to monitor public safety and parking.
These cancellations reflect community criticisms about privacy and government overreach.
The license plate readers aren’t connected to the local town systems. The university campus functions as an island within the broader community in terms of public safety and legal jurisdiction, according to Sam Adams, URI director of emergency management and assistant director of Public Safety.
“They don’t have jurisdiction here,” Adams said. “The town’s decision to get Flock in the first place had nothing to do with us and their decision to eliminate it.”
The university uses an internal license plate recognition system, according to Adams.
“This gives us at least a tool to monitor what vehicles are coming and going from campus,” Adams said. “Since we don’t have a way to control access.”
The cameras have been used since 2018 and were originally used for parking enforcement, monitoring and tracking, according to Adams.
One camera used on campus is a fixed camera; these are mobile readers that are also used for parking enforcement, according to Adams.
“That’s actually why we no longer have hang tags for parking because we use the LPR system instead,” Adams said. “The originals were at the entrance to the welcome center lot.”
The campus master transportation plan created several years ago established the campus wayfinding program, according to Adams.
“Finally starting to get underway,” Adams said. “A key piece of that was expanding LPR. If we were going to invest in something like this, I’d like to get as much use of the technology as possible.”
The university is developing a coordinated system within the Transportation and Parking app that helps students and faculty know when a lot is being utilized. The system was planned to be developed before the South Kingston controversy.
More cameras will be added to the Fine Arts North and Alumni Center parking lots to support parking enforcement throughout campus.
“By detecting people entering that don’t have a valid permit for that lot, those cameras are also used to track the number of vehicles coming and going through the lots,” Adams said. “At any point, we know the available occupancy.”
The advanced camera technology is especially used at campus entrances, though the system is still in the works.
“It’s not fully up and running,” Adams said. “We can identify the vehicles with somebody who has been trespassed from the university. We get an alert when somebody is potentially coming to campus who shouldn’t be here.”
The cameras have also been used to address individual risks, such as when a student expresses suicidal ideation to a roommate; public safety can check if their vehicle is on campus.
“We have an ability to look and see if their vehicle has come to campus,” Adams said. “It’s a really important tool for those kinds of situations.”
Some students believe the cameras are necessary to maintain safety and enforce parking policies on school grounds.
“Those readers are really good at what they do,” third-year student No.Francois said. “I can see why the policy is in place. They’re doing their job.”
The URI Public Safety Advisory Committee will host their next meeting on Dec. 1 at 3 p.m. To learn more about what the Department of Campus Safety does, visit their website.
