Residents use license plate camera to ward off crime

Break-ins and other crimes are not common in the houses of the Copper Ridge subdivision near Woodstock, but homeowners association president Doug Philbrick with his fellow board members have installed a license plate camera system at the subdivision entrance for extra security.

Philbrick and other board members decided to install the camera, developed by Flock Safety, after a neighbor watched a television news report of homeowners helping catch a wanted suspect using the system.

“It’s a peace of mind thing more than anything,” Philbrick said in an interview with the Tribune Monday.

Systems like the one in Copper Ridge capture photographs of all license plates attached to cars entering the neighborhood using a motion sensor, and categorizes them based on whether they’re registered as a resident in the system. There’s a time stamp on each image, so if a crime is committed in the neighborhood, residents can check the photos of unregistered plates taken in a given time frame and hand them to the authorities to run the plates. With the Flock software, users can also search for a plate number or vehicle color, or filter for bicycles.

The Copper Ridge license plate camera has the ability to connect to Cherokee County’s database to alert police if plates associated with a wanted person are captured on the system, something Philbrick says he hopes to establish soon with the county.

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