Letter to Lower Salford Township Board of Supervisors, September 1, 2026

Dear Supervisors,

On December 20, 2023 the Board of Supervisors at the time unanimously approved the installation of four ALPR (Automatic License Plate Reader) cameras at the intersection of Routes 63 and 113.

My understanding is that these are PLATELOGIQ readers with the solution installation cost apparently paid for by Montgomery County with a contact term of five years and ongoing cellular service paid for by the township. This system as installed makes a "24 hour per day, 365 day per year record of vehicle license plates through the identified intersection" per the marketing materials.

In 2023 when this decision was made, I would posit that public was largely unaware of the negative consequences that misidentification of vehicles and misuse of the system could have on innocent citizens. There are now weekly stories about officers unable to resist the temptation to surveil the realtime location of people they know, women they have encountered, and people who speak out about the actions of their local departments. There's a July story about a man who was tracked for days by police in Minnesota across multiple cameras and arrested at gunpoint with police thinking he was driving a stolen car because a ALPR system didn't recognize sequential superscripts in New Jersey dealer license plates as being different tags.

When Supervisor Morrell asked Chief Moyer this morning whether we use "Flock Cameras" and the answer is no, we only have four ALPR devices at a single intersection, that's entirely missing the point. It's as if you asked Mr. Jones¹ if a township park were being sprayed with Monsanto RoundUp seven days a week and he said not to worry because we only use "generic glycophosphate." The issue is not what trademark of cameras are being used, it's what the product does 24/7 and is capable of doing when misused that some residents are rightfully concerned about.

Even if we trust every officer sworn to Lower Salford Township implicitly, this data is shared through the VIPR system to other agencies in the county and elsehere and at the end of the day the data is not under the control of the township or LSPD but of the PLATELOGIQ company and the security of the logins to the software system used to query this database. Recent prominent hacks of other ALPR systems and camera devices demonstrate that there is no assurance of the security of the drivers location history or of the lookups by officers.

People are noticing that Lower Salford has these cameras installed on public property and in the last few weeks have been regularly mentioning them on local social media and discussion groups. I believe some substantive discussion on the topic would be appropriate at this time. I understand that this can a useful tool for officers and investigators, but as with any government-wielded tool some risk assessment is warranted.

As always thank you for all you do.

Sincerely, Rob Carlson

Footnotes

1. The Director of Public Works ↩