Flock cameras must go, Middleboro Town Meeting says

MIDDLEBORO — Middleboro Town Meeting told the town’s Flock cameras to fly away.

Voters decided to block Middleboro from using Flock cameras or other automatic license plate readers at the Nov. 9 Fall Town Meeting.

The law, which was brought to Town Meeting through a citizen’s petition, passed with a large majority after residents raised privacy concerns generated by the cameras.

“We, in the land of the free, have a right to privacy,” said Alex Cook. “These Flock cameras operate without warrants, without discretion and in too many cases, without proper oversight.”

The new law will prevent the Middleboro Police Department from using the three Flock cameras it currently operates and will prevent it from entering into new contracts with Flock Safety or other license plate reader manufacturers. Town and city governments in Massachusetts, including New Bedford and Cambridge, have ended their contracts with Georgia-based Flock Safety. Middleboro joins them in getting rid of  its contract, which it has had since 2023.

Middleboro High School senior Maeve Cole noted that people have been wrongfully convicted due to license plate readers erroneously marking them as being part of crimes they were not present at. Cole said that these cameras may “ease” police investigations, which could result “in law enforcement officers having a much harder time realizing what’s real evidence and what’s just an AI going rogue.”

Select Board Vice Chair Thomas White said that he was “offended” by Cole’s notion that they make police officers’ lives easier. “This is a tool to help our officers and our police department get the bad guy,” he said.

Middleboro Police Chief Robert Ferreira said that the cameras do ease investigation, but they make it a more efficient process. 

“This technology is valuable for police investigations," Ferreira said. “It allows us to solve crimes faster or to solve crimes that may otherwise go unsolved.”

Ferreira said that 16 of the department’s officers, most of whom are detectives, could access the Flock database. They have helped solve missing persons, drug and weapon cases and helped the police track a murder suspect, he said.

Ferreira said that there are no cases of Middleboro police officers misusing Flock cameras in town.

He told Nemasket Week in October that the department shares its data nationwide with all Flock customers. 

Select Board member Tracie Craig-McGee brought up a story of a 6-year-old girl in Lynn that was rescued from a car that was stolen after Everett police tracked it using Flock cameras. “I’m a grandmother, and if anybody grabbed one of my grand kids, I want police all over the state to have the ability, these tools, to track my daughter and get my granddaughters back,” she said.

Craig-McGee also said she was not afraid to drive past Flock cameras because “I’m not doing anything wrong” on the road. 

Jodi Griswold, who also said she was a grandmother, said “I’d honestly rather have my daughter, my granddaughter have their freedom and privacy” than have their privacy invaded.

“Littered through the Bill of Rights is there a guarantee of privacy and due process,” said Middleboro High sophomore Jack Guilfoi. “And I don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest to turn a blind eye to the devices breaking such a promise.”

After the bylaw passed, the voters in the auditorium cheered. Cole shouted, “The Fourth Amendment lives on.”