By Tye Grant, President & CEO, Police Foundation of Kansas City

Tye Grant is President of the Police Foundation of Kansas City and a retired Major with the Kansas City Missouri Police Department. During his 26-year law enforcement career, he led KCPD’s Violent Crimes Division and held leadership roles in investigations, large-scale event security management, critical incident response, patrol, training, media relations, and tactical enforcement. He is passionate about strengthening Kansas City through innovation, collaboration, and strategic investments that support KCPD and the community it serves.

Technology continues to transform the way organizations make decisions, deliver services and protect the communities they serve. Law enforcement is no exception.

Recently, considerable attention has been directed toward a particular technology (License Plate Readers), and the vendor providing it (Flock), because of concerns surrounding how information collected through this technology may be accessed or used. Those concerns about privacy and the protection of sensitive information deserve serious consideration. At the same time, I believe the conversation deserves the opportunity to examine a much broader issue than a singular vendor or technology.

Law enforcement agencies obtain, access and safeguard significant amounts of sensitive information every day. It is part of the job. The information associated with any single technology represents only one part of this much larger responsibility.

This raises an important question: Rather than focusing exclusively on whether one particular technology should or should not be used, we should instead be asking whether adequate safeguards exist for the collection, access, use and protection of sensitive information across all technologies and systems?

Limiting or prohibiting a particular technology does not necessarily address the possibility of any underlying issue. The more important and lasting responsibility is ensuring effective policies, procedures, expectations, legal protections and accountability measures govern how sensitive information is accessed and used—regardless of where the information originates.

Technology itself is a tool. When used outside established boundaries there must be clear and meaningful accountability. When appropriately implemented, and responsibly used, it can help law enforcement make more informed decisions, improve efficiency and contribute to safer neighborhoods, businesses and communities. 

No policy or system can provide an absolute guarantee against any lapse in the judgment of an imperfect human. This reality should not prevent organizations from using valuable tools. It should instead challenge us to build stronger systems around their use.

Perhaps a more productive approach would be to question: What checks and balances have been established to ensure this technology—and the information it provides—is used appropriately, lawfully and for its intended purpose?

That same question should apply not only to the technology currently receiving public attention, but to every system through which sensitive information is collected, accessed or shared.

Technology and data are increasingly important tools for making informed decisions, expanding capacity and improving efficiency. Law enforcement is no different from other organizations in this regard. Technology can only be as responsible as the framework surrounding its use.

A stronger and more sustainable approach is to ensure reasonable safeguards, clear expectations and meaningful accountability apply to all sensitive information and the technologies used to access it.

This approach protects privacy, supports responsible innovation and helps maintain something equally important to public safety: the trust of the community.