Franklin is Flocked

Franklin Township rests to the east of Lehighton and Weissport Boroughs, where it also has four cameras within its borders. These cameras record those who get on the turnpike, reach the end of Route 248, or find themselves on Maury Road near Long Run, for some reason.

Franklin Township has responded to my three Right-to-Know requests. One of their responses is still under appeal with the OOR, but the other appeal has been granted in my favor, so the Township is working on getting me documents.

After the Office of Open Records granted my appeal, they gave Franklin Township 30 days to hand over the documents I requested. Franklin Township ignored this and allowed all thirty days to pass without a sound. I sent them a message stating I would have to consult the county's Court of Common Pleas and also gave them a phone call, which they actually responded to and began working on the response.

The Township isn't happy with the way this is turning out and finally hired a lawyer to handle my second appeal when they realized that I was serious about these records. There's nothing else they can do for the settled appeal other than give me the documents, though, since they effectively ignored every communication from the OOR down to the final determination.

Now, I await their response with the rest of the records I request. Specifically, I'm looking for the Government Agency Contract between Franklin Township and Flock. This will give us information on how the Township is allowed to use the cameras, how the data is handled, etc.

So far, we know that Franklin Township has nationwide data sharing enabled. For one of their requests, they sent over a document listing their shared networks, all of the agencies they share data with. This document has 39 pages of real data (and a lot of empty pages) listing agencies in locations such as Ohio, Kentucky, Florida, Indiana, West Virginia, New York, Massachussets, and more. There's even a few cities from all the way in California.

The shared networks document also confirms that Mahoning Township and Weatherly have data sharing enabled with Franklin Township. Interestingly, "Lehighton PA PD" also appears in this list despite Lehighton Borough not owning any cameras and claiming they have nothing to do with Flock Safety.

We also know that three police officers, one detective, and the Chief have access to the Flock system in Franklin Township. The Township also provided a handful of searches they recently performed in the system. It's way less records than I requested (this is under appeal), but some notable searches include a 6,218-network search without a reason, 1,521-network search for "suspect," and 1,531-network search for "threats."