Will use Beaufort Co. cameras to find suspicious vehicles? Concerns raised before final vote

Beaufort County Council’s finance committee on Monday gave the go-ahead for funding for 23 new license plate reading cameras and additional software to search through the data collected for certain vehicles. A discussion pitted public safety concerns against personal liberties.

Five of the 11 county council members are on the committee and voted in favor of the project, except for Councilman David Bartholomew, whose comments raised privacy and liability issues.

The committee approved using $262,000 for the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office to purchase, install and maintain the cameras over the next two years. The funding still needs to be approved by the full council to move forward.

Gun violence and drive-by shootings in Beaufort County were the main reasons the department investigated installing these cameras, Capt. Brian Baird, who serves as a special projects officer for the sheriff’s department, said during the meeting.

His shooting 14-year-old boy from Burton, Jerrieme “LJ” Washington in January was a catalyst for the project, Baird said.

Currently, individual municipalities have their own chambers, including Hilton Head, Beaufort and Bluffton, Baird said.

What is proposed?

After evaluating several options from three different companies, the department decided they would purchase 23 cameras from Rekor and two command link devices from Verkada. The devices, Baird said, process the feed from the cameras so license plate numbers and specific times can be looked up. According to the proposal, cameras would be placed in 20 different locations where the highest crime rates occur.

If approved by the full council, contracts for the equipment are scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.

Baird said if certain license plate numbers are entered into the system, such as the plate of a stolen vehicle, the department will be notified if that plate passes a camera.

How are the rooms funded?

The department applied for a grant from the South Carolina Department of Public Safety to fund the project, Baird said, but were ultimately denied. The reason for the refusal was not shared during the meeting. Because of this, the sheriff’s department had to reduce the number of cameras from 65 to 23.

Funding will instead come from the county’s American Rescue Plan Act fund, federal funds earmarked for nationwide fiscal recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic. According to an update from Hank Amundson, special assistant to the county administrator, Beaufort County received $37.3 million in ARPA funds in 2022, to be identified by the end of December of this year. After money was allocated for five projects, including the sheriff’s department cameras, there was no money left in the fund.

The project will cost $262,000 over two years. The two companies will charge $230,000 for the cameras and two command-and-control devices that will allow law enforcement to search through the stream. Maintenance in the second year will cost around $32,000.

The department hopes to purchase additional cameras in the future through county funds, Baird said.

What are the objections?

The county currently has a demonstration room, Baird said. This camera has already helped locate a Savannah murder suspect, track down several stolen vehicles, and find a dementia patient who drove away from a Sun City home.

Despite the outcome, council member David Bartholomew raised several concerns, the biggest being the balance between public safety and civil liberties. He raised questions about data storage, state-level rules and the use of artificial intelligence.

Daniel F. Gourley II, general counsel for the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, said there is currently no state law to guide them. Last year, a bill was proposed but never made it out of the state House of Representatives, he said.

Unlike the cameras installed by the South Carolina Division of Law Enforcement, the information captured by the Beaufort County cameras would only be stored for 30 days. SLED is currently being sued by South Carolina Public Interest Foundation through their network of cameras that store information indefinitely, he said.

Gourley said the information will also be held by a private, third-party company instead of the sheriff’s department, meaning the personal data will not be a public record under FOIA. There will be limitations on who can access information from the sheriff’s department, and if they want to look up something that has been recorded, it must be linked to a case number for an active investigation.

Baird said an audit trail is left in the company’s software programs so the sheriff’s department can see who accessed the information and what they searched for.

Bartholomew said he would not support funding the project without state regulations on the capture, storage and retrieval of data from license plate readers. He mentioned that the problem would be resumed at the state level next year.

The County Council will have a regular meeting on December 9th where they will discuss camera funding. If the board approves the funding, Baird said, then he will work with the two companies to put contracts in place by the end of the year. Installation could begin as early as the second week of January.