By JESSICA BRICKER
The same day the City of Bluffton approved the purchase of license plate cameras, the Wells County commissioners limited the scope of usage of the data being collected at the cameras on the 300W bridge over the Wabash River, setting the tone for any future camera purchases throughout the county.
“There’s a lot of public comment about the use of traffic cameras and there’s significant concern on the commissioners’ part regarding privacy (and) the rights of citizens,” County Attorney Colin Andrews said Tuesday morning before introducing an ordinance on the matter. “That always has to be weighed against protection of property and personal injury, so there’s some law enforcement consideration but then there’s also deep concern for creeping, feeling of a nanny state or something like that.”
The Bluffton Police Department received the Board of Public Works and Safety’s approval Tuesday afternoon to purchase four cameras from Flock Safety. They will be used to identify license plate numbers and vehicle make, model and color, which will be fed into servers in the event that the vehicle has been linked to a crime or missing person.
The county, on the other hand, installed the cameras on the 300W bridge south of Ind. 116 in an effort to deter — or capture evidence of — further damage to the expensive, historic-select structure after it was struck by an oversized load, which led to its closure and taxpayer-funded repairs.
“The commissioners have considered the competing concerns of county property protection and the threat of governmental gathering of private individual data through clandestine photography and video,” Andrews said. “The Wells County commissioners are committed to protecting individual privacy and furthermore aware of the threat of intrusive government action into the lives of private citizens of Wells County.”
Authorization of the release of the recorded information is subject to commissioner approval, and those instances include personal injury, property damage or felonies.
“We’ve limited the scope of what we’re utilizing it for and we’re ensuring that the public knows that it’s a big concern when we have this surveillance state,” Andrews said. “It’s out there, it’s in other places. You see it happening everywhere. And hearing from the commissioners, (we) want to ensure that at least the citizens of the county know that we’re aware of that and we won’t put up with that sort of incursion into your ordinary life.”
The ordinance was drafted specifically with the cameras on the 300W bridge in mind, but the ordinance isn’t limited to just those cameras.
“This is not just affective for those cameras (on 300W),” Andrews stressed. “If, 10 years from now, Wells County wants to put in more cameras, it has to comply with this provision or the commissioners would have to be public about rescinding this and instituting another policy, so there’s an added protection out there as well.”
jessica@news-banner.com
