Responding to two home burglaries in late November, the Munsey Park Board of Trustees hosted public presentations by two security firms last Wednesday about the prospect of installing security cameras in the village.
“We’re in the process of educating ourselves about the technology that’s available and understanding the concerns of the residents,” said Sean Haggerty, the mayor of Munsey Park. “This is just one step in the process to determine the viability of this technology within the village.”
The two firms, A+ Technology and Security and NDI Recognition Systems, have installed camera systems in other villages, Haggerty said.
Munsey Park is looking into installation of a security system called a license plate reader, which employs specialized cameras designed to recognize and capture license plates as they pass through a defined area, Haggerty said.
The village would post the systems, which usually include two or three cameras, at each of the village’s six entrances and exits, he said.
The cameras focus solely on the license plate, transmitting that information to a secure server which can store data for a predetermined amount of time or send it to a monitoring station, Haggerty said.
“Understanding how the technology works is one thing” but “being able to apply the data in an effective way is a far more important aspect for the village,” he said. “We will begin the process of speaking to other municipalities that employ this technology in an effort to understand the real time effectiveness and viability of these systems.”
Haggerty said the concerns of villagers on Wednesday focused primarily on cost and privacy issues.
“The system could be installed comfortably under $100,000, which could be funded from our general account and would not increase taxes,” Haggerty said.
“The yearly maintenance cost of a system can fluctuate based on the service agreements and connectivity costs but would be somewhere around $5,000 to $10,000 per year. Again this is well within our means to fund with our current budget,” he added.
The questions from residents about privacy concerned where the recorded information is stored, whether it’s secure, and who will have access to it and for how long, he said.
“We would need to enact privacy laws for the use of the technology,” Haggerty said. “No one likes Big Brother.”
Another issue raised by the cameras is the village’s partnership with the Nassau County Police Department.
Since the village does not have its own police force and will not add one, the village will rely on the NCPD to gather license plate information and check it against the county database in a timely fashion, Haggerty said.
Village officials have a meeting with an NCPD technology officer to review all aspects of the technology and the NCPD’s ability to use the data, he said.
Haggerty said he will invite representatives from the NCPD, and perhaps representatives from the two security firms, to the village’s next Board of Trustees meeting on Jan. 11 at 7:30 p.m.
“This process needs to be done in public,” he said. “We want village residents to have an opportunity to know what this is and to weigh in.”
