UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State police are ending their contract with Flock Safety and removing the company’s license plate cameras from the University Park campus.
The cameras photograph passing cars and log their plates, and police in Allentown and Bethlehem use the same kind. Penn State is dropping its cameras as state lawmakers weigh limits on them, and it said the decision came down to cost and value.
“After reviewing the cost of the system, the return on investment and the operational value, Police and Public Safety has determined that we’re not renewing the contract that has expired,” Penn State Chief Financial Officer Sara Thorndike said in answer to a question at a Faculty Senate meeting Tuesday, WPSU reported. She said the cameras are being removed now.
In a statement, Jacqueline Sheader, a spokesperson for University Police and Public Safety, described the deal as an “initial one-year contract” for cameras “at select campus perimeter locations.” She said the department is considering other tools but has not chosen a replacement.
The statement did not say what the contract cost or when the cameras will all be gone.
When Thorndike first confirmed the pilot in February, a university spokesperson told WPSU it was “limited in scope and duration, with no contract or cost during the testing period.”
Penn State has not said how many cameras it ran or where. In February, the spokesperson told WPSU that it did not publish locations and counts “for security reasons” and that the public had no access to the data.
Thorndike also called the cameras part of a “systemwide safety pilot” that month. This week’s statement does not say whether the pilot reached any other campus, such as Penn State Lehigh Valley in Center Valley.
Closer to home, Allentown announced 67 Flock cameras in January 2024. Bethlehem police defended their own readers in an August report that did not say how many the city has. DeFlock, a volunteer map of plate readers, counted more than 200 across the Lehigh Valley as of late August.
Pennsylvania has no law setting statewide rules for the data the cameras collect. State lawmakers have proposed bills to restrict or ban them.
Both candidates for governor in the Nov. 3 election oppose the cameras. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro said at a late-August news conference that he “would welcome bipartisan legislation to ban these across the state.” His Republican challenger, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, called them an “intrusive invasion of privacy” in a statement and said they should be banned.