Leaders of the Louisville Metro Council’s political parties say it’s time for the city’s police department to disclose where they install a growing network of controversial license plate reader cameras.
To lawmakers, at least.
Louisville Metro Police officials have so far refused to publicly disclose where they’ve installed nearly 200 license plate readers. The agency has another 100 or so awaiting installation. Police use the cameras, supplied by the company Flock Safety, to record and collect data on passing vehicles.
The technology came under new local scrutiny after KyCIR revealed Louisville police share the data with law enforcement across the country who’ve used it for federal immigration enforcement. And, this month, KyCIR analyzed police citations that showed Black residents were disproportionately charged with crimes based on LMPD’s use of license plate readers.
Metro Council Member Tammy Hawkins, a District 1 Democrat and chair of the council’s majority caucus, and her counterpart, Metro Council Member Anthony Piagentini, a District 19 Republican and minority caucus chair, say LMPD officials should share camera locations with local legislators to ensure accountability and effectiveness.
Piagentini said he’s inclined to agree with LMPD that the camera locations shouldn’t be public knowledge. But he does think the police should share that information with the council, where members help guide city policy.
“I absolutely don't think it should be so secret that the elected officials who have the job of oversight should not be able to see them,” he said. “But whether or not that should be public – I'm open to more discussion on it, because I think transparency is important.”
Hawkins said she agrees with Piagentini and suggested the council could be a resource for police in deciding where to place cameras because each legislator is an expert on the area they represent. Personally, she said she knows where she’d want to place the cameras in her district.
“We are their [LMPD’s] vessel to the people. I know I am, anyway,” she said. “We talk to the community way more than what the police do. They're going to give us information quicker than they'll give it to the police. Why wouldn't they rely on us?”
LMPD spokesman Sgt. Matt Sanders told KyCIR in a statement: “LMPD regularly engages in discussions with Metro Council members about public safety. We will continue to welcome and encourage input from all council members on ways to keep Louisville safe.”
License plate reader technology concerns civil rights and liberties advocates who worry the cameras can be deployed more heavily in neighborhoods that many people of color call home. Some said the overconcentration of cameras in marginalized communities could be a factor involved in the racial disparity that KyCIR uncovered concerning who’s arrested in cases where police use data from license plate readers.
KyCIR reviewed LMPD citations for 2025 that mentioned license plate readers. Of the 177 citations, half were issued to Black people. Comparatively, about a quarter of Louisville’s population is Black.
“If there's a concentration of law enforcement presence – the traffic stops, surveillance technologies, cameras, et cetera – then you're going to pick up more of that activity in one community than you're going to pick up in another community,” said Amber Duke, executive director of the ACLU of Kentucky.
It’s common for police departments to deploy license plate readers in what they consider to be “high-crime areas, areas where you need intelligence that is hard to get,” said Professor Adam Wandt, deputy chair for technology at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Often, these areas are likely to include neighborhoods with more nonwhite residents, he said.
“There are academics that have spent their entire lives trying to figure out why, exactly, higher crime areas have certain different racial demographics than a larger city or larger county as a whole,” he said.
Wandt said license plate readers are a valuable tool for police, but their locations shouldn’t be kept secret.
When KyCIR told Wandt about LMPD’s refusal to provide records on local Flock camera locations, he said it was the first time a reporter told him a police department rejected a records request based on the notion that it would hurt law enforcement operations.
He said he might accept that argument if a Flock camera was temporarily placed somewhere as part of a targeted investigation into a serious crime, like a homicide. But for stationary cameras installed on local streets, he thinks the public has a right to know where "permanently mounted technologies” like that are located in their community.
“And as much as I am a fan of Flock technology … in the larger aspect of things, I am also dedicated to transparency. I am also dedicated to accountability,” he said. “And in my mind, a police department or city who refuses a [Freedom of Information Act] request based upon those criteria are not being as transparent with the public as they should be.”
Council GOP wants improved strategy for deploying cameras
Republicans are gaining power on the Metro Council, and as they do they’re prioritizing a so-called “Safer Louisville” public safety plan. One goal of the plan includes working with LMPD to improve the strategy behind where to install license plate readers. For example, Piagentini said, it makes sense to put more cameras in places where police are more likely to find stolen cars.
Right now, he wouldn’t be surprised to see a disproportionate number of license plate readers in the city’s East End because council members like himself allotted discretionary funding for cameras to be placed in their districts.
Metro Council Member Dan Seum, Jr., a District 13 Republican and the new chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee, said he wants to promote positive stories about license plate readers and the crimes they’ve helped solve.
When it comes to where they’re located, he said the cameras should be deployed based on where crimes happen.
“We're not going to just put them in any area, because they're expensive, for one thing,” he said. “And why would you have one in an area that has, you know, hardly any crime? So, we're looking at stats. We're not looking at color.”
