Deflock AltoonaALPR transparency tracker

Vendor-published usage, tracked daily

ALPR transparency tracker

Name: Altoona, Iowa ALPR transparency metrics
Creator: Deflock Altoona

Collected once a day: Axon figures straight from Axon’s public portal for Altoona PD, and Flock figures from Eyes On Flock’s copy of Flock’s Altoona PD portal. Each portal shows a rolling 30-day window. Why we collect it every day.

New here? Plate readers in Altoona, in five minutesStart here

What they are. An automated license plate reader (ALPR) is a camera that photographs passing vehicles and turns each plate into a record with a time and a place that police can search later. The City says its readers are not facial recognition and do not follow a car from camera to camera (Police).

Who runs them. Altoona police use two vendors, Flock Safety and Axon. Each publishes a public portal with its own rolling figures, and this page copies them once a day, as the vendors report them. Flock and Axon count differently, so their figures are never added together.

How they got here. The City describes a pilot, then subscriptions folded into the yearly police budget, then an expansion and an Axon agreement. How the program was approved puts each step beside what the Council minutes show.

What the numbers mean. Vehicles detected counts plate reads, not people. Hotlist hits are reads that matched a list such as stolen plates or warrants. Searches are officers querying stored reads. The latest figures and their history are under Flock’s figures over time, and the City’s own statements sit beside the records under Statements and records.

What the records don’t show. The portals do not say whose car was searched, why, or what came of it. Records the City released to the site’s requests are on Records requests, and what each source shows and leaves out is on the Sourcebook.

The open question. Courts disagree on whether searching stored plate reads needs a warrant (Court rulings). The site’s own view is on Why this site exists, labeled as opinion.

The City’s account · beside the Council record

How the program was approved

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Each step, with what the Council record shows

Combined · last 30 days

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Axon · last 30 days

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Flock Safety · last 30 days

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Community-mapped · vendor-reported on the switch below

How many cameras

The police department doesn’t publish a list of its cameras, so the volunteer map of known cameras is what residents have to go on. These counts are community-mapped and unverified.

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SettingsCameras that count, map base, value colors

Cameras that count

Community-mapped cameras are volunteers’ unverified tags; the vendors’ own counts are their statements.

Map base

Street lines, nothing, or OpenStreetMap tiles (an outside service, requested only once picked).

Value colors

How the nearby map shades a count: green to red, or neutral.

Vendor-reported · nearby cities

Nearby jurisdictions

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Altoona
Agency publishes a vendor camera count
Numbers: each city’s community-mapped total (unverified, “mapped”) with the switch on, its vendor count with it off
Agency publishes a vendor camera count, shaded low to high: –––
No public portal, or no data found
No ALPR (confirmed)
Polk County (unincorporated): no public Sheriff portal
1, 3, 5, and 10 miles from Altoona's city limit
A community-mapped camera (OpenStreetMap, unverified; shown with the community-mapped switch)
Major street

With the community-mapped switch on, dots show where cameras are mapped in OpenStreetMap as of 2026-10-02; the city counts come from a separate classification of the community snapshot dated in the table, so a city’s dots and its number can differ. Select a city to filter the table. Boundaries, streets and camera positions © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), retrieved 2026-09-27, 2026-10-02, simplified; distances are approximate.

How far is any part of Altoona from the nearest mapped camera? Try the coverage map, or check one street with the camera check.

Vendor portals · nearby agencies

Retention and prohibited uses

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Vendor-reported · Flock’s figures over time, with reported crime

Flock’s figures over time

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Archived readings via the Internet Archive

Vendor-reported · public record · side by side

Police use and public participation

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Searches are Flock’s own 30-day figure as its portal reported it, divided by an ACS area estimate of Altoona’s population. Speakers per meeting come from the minutes and cover all public comment at Council on any topic, not only ALPR. The two are shown side by side; nothing here says one caused the other, and neither is a measure of what the cameras do.

ALPR policy · quoted and dated

Statements and records

The City’s ALPR page and the Police Department’s two plate-reader portals tell residents how long plate reads are kept, what a search must record, how use is audited and who else can see the data. The department’s own written rules cover the same topics. Here each published statement sits beside those records, topic by topic, so you can compare them yourself.

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Seven topics: what they say, and what the records say

Published statements beside the department’s records

Pick a topic to show only that row; the choice is kept in the page link.

Quotes are word for word, with where they appear. Sources and caveats

Each published statement is quoted from the page as this site saved it on the date shown; the City’s page and the portals can change after that. A portal figure, such as its retention setting, is the latest daily reading from this tracker’s collection.

The records side quotes the department’s Policy 424 and its records retention schedule as released under Iowa Code chapter 22, read from the scans; open each record from its link. A line marked as what a record does not contain was checked against every page of that record.

Where a topic says a records request is still open, the department has not yet released records that would show how the rule works in practice: logs, audits, configured settings. This section compares wording only and does not say whether any rule was followed.

Outside reporting on the same topics. An outlet that reviewed records released to another requester reports a retention schedule reading “up to 180 days” where the copy quoted here reads 30, and a Policy 424 with the same audit wording quoted here; the Chief told it the policy will be revised to document quarterly audits. Its account is the outlet’s, and neither copy of the schedule is dated before the other (both readings). Restoring Democracy’s Promise, “Altoona’s Plate Reader Network Goes Beyond Flock,” Timothy C. Tucker, September 14, 2026 (updated September 17).

What they say is what the City and the Police Department publish for residents: the City’s ALPR page and the two transparency portals the vendors host for the department, Flock’s and Axon’s. What the records say is the department’s own paperwork, released in response to a public-records request: Policy 424, its written rules for plate readers, and the records retention schedule; words like should and shall are the policy’s own. Still asked for lists the parts of the records request on that topic the department has not answered yet, with their status on Records requests.

Axon · camera registry and live video

Axon Fusus and Connect Altoona

Fusus is a separate Axon product from the plate readers above. It is the platform behind Connect Altoona, the Police Department’s program for residents and businesses to register or connect their own cameras. This section says what the program describes, what the Council record shows, and what it does not.

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What it is and what it is for, in the program’s own words

Connect Altoona’s privacy FAQ says the program uses Axon Fusus “to create stronger public-private collaborations” between the department and camera owners. It describes two levels:

Registration. An owner lists a camera so investigators can see where cameras are near an incident and ask the owner for footage. The FAQ says registering gives the department no live video and no remote access, and that registry data is classified as protected non-public data.
Integration. An owner connects a camera to the department through a small device Axon calls FususCORE. The FAQ says owners choose how and when the department can see the feed (for example, only in an emergency, started from a panic-button app), and that access requires the owner’s written permission.

Connect Altoona’s camera integration page lists six FususCORE device tiers, from one that handles up to 4 cameras with up to 2 days of storage to one that handles up to 50 cameras with up to 30 days, and marks the two top “AI” tiers as adding alerts when a camera matches search settings a user chooses. The shop on the same site sells these devices. Its privacy notice says the registration and shop sites are operated by Axon on behalf of the Police Department, and that information given at registration is shared with the department for the registry.

The FAQ also says the platform uses artificial intelligence to search video for things such as weapons and vehicles of interest, that it does not use facial recognition, and that the data is stored in a CJIS-compliant cloud. Its statement that registry data is “protected non-public data” not subject to a public-data request is the program’s own claim; this site has not tested it against Iowa’s public-records law. On doorbell cameras the FAQ says a brand’s own authorization is needed as well as the owner’s. These are the program’s statements; this site has not tested any of them.

What the Council and department records show

The department’s 2024 annual report names “Fusus by Axon” together with the ARTIC center and a camera integration and registry program (report page 15). Its 2025 report describes registration versus integration in the passage quoted on that page.
On July 21, 2025 the Council approved, on a consent agenda, an Axon Enterprise Master Services and Purchasing Agreement. The City’s ALPR page says it included Outpost plate-reader units. The agenda title does not mention Fusus, and the minutes give no dollar amount. We have not found a Council action that names Fusus or Connect Altoona.
The record we hold does not show how often the department uses live access, how many integrated cameras are public, school or business cameras, or what the program costs.

This section relies on the program’s site and the department’s reports. These counts are separate from the community-mapped total and from the Flock and Axon plate-reader readings above, and are never added to them.

Portal policies · saved copies

Portal wording over time

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What each portal says about its policies, and any change

Quoted word for word from this site’s saved copies. Sources and caveats

On the record

Officials on the record

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What officials have said about the plate readers, oldest first

Each line comes from a record this site already publishes, with its source. Sources and caveats

Council minutes summarize what was said rather than quoting it, so a Council line reads as the minutes record it. An outside outlet’s account is summarized from the outlet’s report and marked External report.

Sources and collection

Where the tracker gets its figures

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Council record context: 2022–2026

The City’s ALPR page says the program launched in May 2022. These links show Council members named in the tracker’s published roll-call records by year, their recorded position summaries, and the associated vote data.

Sourced claim, yearly Council records, and further reading

They provide calendar-year context, not attribution, for most of that history: the City’s own ALPR FAQ names no Council meeting date for the 2022 pilot, the ongoing annual budget funding that followed it, or the 2024 Flock expansion.

The FAQ does name one identifiable Council action: on July 21, 2025, “City Council approved the Axon Enterprise, Inc., Master Services and Purchasing Agreement at its regular meeting,” which “appeared as Consent Agenda Item 12(c) and included the Outpost ALPR units.” That maps to our vote record for that meeting, sub-item 12(c) (Council minutes, page 3: “Consider approving Axon Enterprise, Inc., Master Services and Purchasing Agreement”) — one roll-call vote, 4–0 (Boka, Duer, Evans, and Stewart voted on the consent agenda that included this item; Mertz absent), that covered the full 15-item consent agenda for that meeting, not the Axon agreement or ALPR specifically. The City page itself says the pilot, ongoing funding, the 2024 expansion, and the Axon agreement “were not one single approval.”

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Read the City’s ALPR program page (approval-timeline FAQ) and the September 8, 2026 public-comment record on ALPR/Flock cameras, where two residents raised camera and Axon-installation questions and received an official reply.

Documented 2022 launch-update roles

FOIA records reviewed by Deflock Altoona show Lt. Steve Harris authored Flock ALPR system updates dated June 3, July 25, and September 26, 2022, and prepared the department’s February 12, 2024 ALPR overview. Each memo is addressed to Mayor Dean O’Connor and Councilpersons. In date order, with the camera counts each one states in its own words:

The memos and the overview, each with its redacted copy, are listed on the records requests page.

What the memos do and don’t establish, and the Council keyword search

The memo headers establish that Harris reported updates and that the Mayor and Council received them. They do not identify an individual Council vote, contract approval, or every person who formulated, deployed, or administered the program. Those historical Flock pilot figures do not establish an Axon camera count or a current combined inventory.

A keyword search of the Council’s posted agendas and minutes for “Flock,” “ALPR,” “license plate reader,” “plate reader,” and “Axon” is in the Records requests page. Each memo’s entry above names the next Council meeting and what this search found in its minutes.

Mayor context in the ALPR era

Mayor Dean O’Connor’s profile is sourced from the City’s Mayor & Council page: it says he served on the City Council from 2012 to 2017 and has been Mayor since 2018. That places his office tenure throughout the City’s stated May 2022 ALPR launch and the 2022 update memos addressed to Mayor Dean O’Connor and Councilpersons.

What office tenure does and doesn’t establish

Office tenure is not a finding of continuous attendance or a roll-call vote. The first tracked minutes, Jan. 6, 2020, list Mayor Dean O’Connor as absent; the Sept. 8, 2026 minutes list him present. The structured roll-call database has no recorded mayoral position, so the tracker does not assign Mayor Dean O’Connor a vote.

The tracker has one automated source per vendor: Axon’s own portal, and Eyes On Flock for Flock (readings of Flock’s own portal are also recorded when available, outside the daily collection, and the newer reading is shown). Each day’s reading and a dated copy of what the source returned are kept, so these totals can be compared over time. Both portals report rolling 30-day totals, so a day-to-day change is not the number of detections that day. Combined rates compare reported event counts; they do not identify unique vehicles, prove that a vehicle was not on a hotlist, or measure enforcement outcomes. Vendor definitions and classifications can differ. Neither source is an independent audit or a City record.