People driving through Winter Springs were being watched, and may have not even known it. Cameras were mounted on a tree in Winter Springs and pointed directly at traffic on State Road 434.
But after News 13 asked questions about the cameras this week, they were removed.
Cameras were hanging from a tree branch near the intersection of State Road 434 and Moss Road in Winter Springs for weeks.
“Very scary, very disturbing,” said David Pritchett, who lives nearby and drives State Road 434 often.
Pritchett says he first thought the city put the cameras up.
However, the cameras were installed by NDI Technologies, which has a national office right behind where the cameras were mounted. NDI makes cameras designed to read license plates, and supplies that equipment and software to several law enforcement agencies across Central Florida.
For example, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office uses the cameras in their cruisers to scan license plates. That scanning helps SCSO track down stolen vehicles.
News 13 asked NDI and state transportation officials this week about the Winter Springs cameras, after Pritchett and others expressed concern about what the cameras could capture, and what that video would be used for. NDI says the cameras were only used for research and development, and that no video was recorded or stored.
Transportation officials tell News 13 they met with NDI Thursday, and asked the company to remove the cameras because they were in the air space over FDOT’s right of way along State Road 434.
NDI officials complied late Thursday afternoon, and removed the cameras and other equipment from the tree they were mounted on.