Skip to content
ORWELL INDEX
Active Updated

Jerome Police | The city's plate reader subscription

The Jerome Police Department pays $14,000 a year for access to a license plate reader network without installing a single camera. The Council found out what it had bought at a budget hearing, and moved the money out of the next year's budget the same evening.

At a glance

How many cameras in the city
None [2] [3]
What the money bought
Access to cameras other agencies operate [3]
Price
$14,000 a year [3]
Who approved it
Not the Council, in any meeting we can find. The Chief said the agreement was included in the FY2025-26 budget. A speaker said a contract was signed in 2025 and not presented to the public. The word Flock appears in no council document before July 2026 [2] [3]
How long the city could see the data
28 days [3]
Who owns the photographs
The company operating the system [3]
A written policy
Yes, adopted March 2026 [1]
Audits
Discussed, not settled [3]

How it happened

  1. Decision

    The policy arrives before the cameras

    The Council adopts Resolution No. 04-26, revising the police department's Idaho Policing Policy Manual. The Chief speaks of "a new policy regarding automated license plate readers soon to be implemented around the City; the updates will allow for the operation of the cameras within state code requirements". Asked by a council member what the readers do, he says they "will take pictures of license plates that pass them and that they could only be used for law enforcement criminal investigations and traffic analysis", and that "the readers are set up all over the state and that there are a few in Jerome County and in surrounding communities". The resolution passes. [1]

  2. Debate

    A resident asks, and learns there are no cameras

    Under citizen correspondence a resident speaks against the cameras, says the community should be able to refuse them, raises what other agencies do with the information, and asks that any existing cameras be disconnected or removed until residents have had the chance to consent. The Chief "confirmed that the City of Jerome currently does not have any Flock cameras in place". [2]

  3. Debate

    The budget hearing

    The Mayor opens by noting that research was done on the plate reader line in the budget and asking that the discussion be respectful. A resident asks that use of the system be paused until the community can vote on it. The Chief says the agreement was in the FY2025-26 budget, describes a case with a good outcome from tracking vehicle information outside Jerome, and says the system has safeguards against abuse. The city attorney tells the Council that plate numbers are not private and there is no expectation of privacy on a public road, that a network confined to one jurisdiction is unlikely to raise a constitutional problem, and that broad networks joining many jurisdictions "cross into a more sustained search and could be troublesome", with no Idaho appellate court and no United States Supreme Court ruling on the question. A state representative says the legislature will probably take up misuse next session and that the systems are unlikely to be outlawed. [3]

  4. Decision

    The money is reallocated

    The city administrator asks whether the $14,000 should be moved under operations or removed entirely. The minutes record that "Mayor Barber, Councilman Peterson, Councilman Ross and Councilwoman Ahrens stated suggested the budgeted funds should be reallocated to other department needs, and Councilman Craig stated the funds should be utilized for the continuation of the Flock system subscription." The administrator confirms the funds will be reallocated to operations. [3]

A city police department can join a license plate reader network without owning a camera. Jerome did. For the budget year beginning October 2025 the department paid $14,000 for a subscription that let it search photographs taken by cameras that belong to other agencies, and it never installed one of its own.[3]

That arrangement removes the thing the usual questions attach to. There is no camera on a pole in Jerome to ask about, no installation to approve and no location to publish. What the city bought was reach into other agencies’ cameras, and reach arrives as a line in a budget rather than as an item a council votes on.

The policy came first

The Council’s first look at any of this was in March 2026, when it adopted a routine revision of the police department’s policy manual.[1] The revision added a section governing automated license plate readers, described by the Chief as “soon to be implemented around the City”. Asked what the readers do, he said they photograph passing plates and may be used only for criminal investigations and traffic analysis, and that there were already a few in Jerome County and in surrounding towns.

So the Council adopted rules for cameras the city did not have, in a resolution about a manual, five months before it discussed the subscription that was already running.

The Council finds out

In July a resident used the citizen correspondence item to ask the Council to disconnect or remove any cameras until residents had consented to them, and was told the city had none.[2] Two weeks later, at the tentative budget hearing, the Council got the fuller picture, and it got it because a line in the budget had drawn attention.[3]

The hearing is the most complete account of plate readers anywhere in this county’s record. The Chief described the system and a case where it helped. The city attorney told the Council that plate numbers are not private and there is no expectation of privacy on a public road, and then drew the line where the argument actually sits: a network inside one jurisdiction is one thing, and a network joining many of them, the whole Magic Valley or the whole state, is a different thing that no Idaho appellate court and no United States Supreme Court has ruled on. A state representative said the legislature would probably look at misuse next session.

Among the things the Council learned in that discussion: photographs taken by the system become the property of the company that operates it, and the city’s own access to them lasts 28 days. The subscription that gives a department reach also hands the record of what it saw to somebody else.

The vote that was not a vote

There was no motion on the cameras. The city administrator asked whether the $14,000 should be moved under operations or struck, and four of the five people on the dais said it should go to other department needs.[3] One said it should keep paying for the subscription. The money was reallocated to operations.

The subscription began in a budget and was taken out of one, without the Council ever voting on the cameras themselves. The agreement the Chief described runs to the end of September 2026. Whether it was canceled or simply allowed to lapse is not something the council record answers.

What we do not know

What you can do

Show up

Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in Jerome County and how public comment works there.

How to show up in Jerome County →

Protect yourself

Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.

Surveillance Self-Defense →

Sources

  1. 1.
    Jerome City Council minutes, 3 March 2026, Resolution No. 04-26 · Meeting record · · accessed
  2. 2.
    Jerome City Council minutes, 21 July 2026, citizen correspondence · Meeting record · · accessed
  3. 3.
    Jerome City Council minutes, 4 August 2026, tentative budget hearing · Meeting record · · accessed

Get the digest

A regular digest of what changed in the world of surveillance: the counties we published, the devices that appeared on the map, and the public meetings where these decisions get made. We send it when there is enough to report.

Subscribe to the newsletter

One click to unsubscribe. What we do with your address is on the newsletter page.