Cambridge Halts License Plate Scanner Program Amid Privacy Concerns
The Cambridge City Council voted unanimously to pause the city’s contract with Flock Safety, which provides automated license plate readers. The contract was initially approved in February by a 6-3…
(Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images for Boston Children’s Hospital)
The Cambridge City Council voted unanimously to pause the city's contract with Flock Safety, which provides automated license plate readers.
The contract was initially approved in February by a 6-3 vote, but recent reports from 404 Media show that safeguarding sensitive data may not be possible with Flock's systems. Council members expressed concerns about privacy and data sharing.
According to a Suffolk Journal report, many federal agencies, including ICE, have had direct access to all of Flock's ALPRs. It has also been found that many police agencies across the country have made searches in Flock's database on behalf of ICE. Some have even given ICE agents their account credentials.
A report from Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias found that Flock disregarded state laws prohibiting data sharing with ICE and other out-of-state agencies.
Flock also provides its products to businesses and local community groups. These private customers can also share the data they collect with Flock's state or national databases.
City Councilor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler expressed his concerns about Flock to the Cambridge Day, “If we as Cambridge don't support the militarized actions of the Trump administration and the federal overreach we're seeing in cities across the country, we have to be sure that we aren't using technologies that are facilitating those kinds of actions.”
Sen. Ron Wyden wrote the following in a letter to Flock: “Abuses of your product are not only likely but inevitable,” and Flock “is unable and uninterested in preventing them.”
According to a Suffolk Journal report, the data from Flock's ALPRs has been used to track vehicles and people across the country. Eyes on Flock has reported more than 174,000 searches made in the Flock database.
An open-source project, deflock, is using community reports and public records requests to identify the location of Flock ALPRs. This database includes the locations of 47,166 ALPRs. Currently, three known Flock ALPR locations exist in Cambridge, according to deflock's data.
