Rochester law enforcement switching to encrypted radio channels, preventing public from listening in

ROCHESTER – A popular pastime among neighborhood watchdogs will soon go away in Rochester as local law enforcement agencies transition to encrypted radio communications.

Both the Rochester Police Department and Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office this week announced plans to begin moving communications traditionally heard over scanners to more private channels later this month.

In doing so, the agencies say they will be able to better protect confidential medical information of victims and limit incidents in which suspects can listen to law enforcement operations actively unfold.

“We have had suspects in the very recent past, after they’ve committed serious crimes, get information from scanners, like the description of who police officers are looking for at the scene,” said Rochester Police Capt. Paul Gronholz. “And that compromises our response.”

Press freedom groups, however, have raised concerns about the loss of transparency in what has become a growing trend of law enforcement agencies switching to encrypted channels.

A number of major U.S. cities ― from Denver to New York ― have already switched to encrypted channels for police communications. In Minnesota, Hennepin County became the first known agency to encrypt calls in 2019. Minneapolis is also considering a plan to do so this year.

Critics say that by limiting the flow of information in real time, the departments are making it harder for the public and the press to hold them accountable.

“We’ve seen in a number of concrete cases that learning about an incident from a police scanner is a way that journalists and the public can be confident that someone else is on the scene during these incidents ― so that there’s more than just the official story of what ultimately happened," said Grayson Clary, staff attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

Clary said he sees the move toward encrypted channels as a backlash among law enforcement against transparency measures that have ramped up in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd.

He said rather than cutting off access to scanner traffic altogether, police should consider other ways to protect a victim’s privacy while balancing the press’ need to keep the public informed.

“Exactly because there’s a lot of consciousness that having someone else on the scene who might be in a position to second-guess the official story can be so powerful, there’s a natural temptation to cut down on avenues for folks to gather that information in the first place,” Clary said in an interview.

Gronholz disputed any notion that the department’s goal is to reduce transparency, noting police will still release information to the public through daily incident reports, news releases and social media.

Gronholz said the department has tried a hybrid model for encryption, in which officers could manually switch back and forth from encrypted to non-encrypted channels, but that proved not to always be feasible in fast-moving response situations.

The proliferation of mobile scanner apps and social media have made it more difficult, he added, to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations.

“We’re absolutely going to share the information, especially when it comes [to] community safety,” Gronholz said. “We’re just going to make sure that data doesn’t get out that shouldn’t.”

Gronholz said his department has not considered providing keys for members of the press to listen in, as some other agencies that adopted encrypted channels have done.

Even if it did, Clary said many of the policies allowing press access have turned out to be ineffective. Oftentimes, there are financial requirements or invasive disclosure agreements that hinder the press’ ability to uphold its watchdog function, he said.

“We need to see more serious efforts to preserve a pathway for journalists who have been reporting on these scenes responsibly for a very long time to maintain access.”

Rochester police said there will be no cost to make the transition to encrypted channels, which will go into effect on Jan. 27.