Fall River Police Defend Flock Cameras Amid Regional Abuse Concerns

It seems like every day there’s a news report about someone in law enforcement in trouble for abusing their department’s Flock safety camera system, the automatic license plate reader (ALPR)  technology that stores data and made available to police without a warrant.

Just recently, in neighboring New Bedford, a police officer was placed on administrative leave for allegedly using Flock to trace the whereabouts of her ex-girlfriend. Police Chief Jason Thody temporarily paused the use of the system and announced on Wednesday the department was doing a labor-intensive manual audit going back to 2024.

The decision to reinstate the Flock system in New Bedford is still in question and yesterday the New Bedford City Council was shut down by anti-Flock protestors.

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee just put a moratorium on the installation of any new cameras, and ordering a 60-day review period so RI State Police can come up with some policies.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which consider use of Flock Safety cameras are a violation of privacy and civil liberties, just launched a national campaign called “Get the Flock Out.”

Here in Fall River, there doesn’t seem to be too much controversy over the Flock Safety system that was first introduced in the city in June 2021 after an initial 10 cameras were purchased through American Rescue Plan Act funding.

The amount of Flock cameras, which also document other vehicle identifiers like make and model, is now up to 41.

Flock adds a new layer of supervising

Acting Fall River Police Chief J.T. Hoar said is just one camera surveillance tool in the police department’s tool, albeit an important one. And with Flock’s new technology, they can better monitor the use, and possible abuse, of the data the system collects.

In 2026, Flock just introduced an auditing tool that can flag suspicious search behavior by officers to command staff and require mandatory case codes before running a search.

“The system itself has insights into trends of use. It also has its own engine that they built out last year that we’re using currently that will track trends within the system,” said Hoar.

The police department itself has strict policies in place, including that no officer will have access unless they receive training.

It was likely that auditing capability that gave New Bedford police department the ability to discover their officer was using to track her ex-girlfriend since it was an internal investigation that brough it to light.

Cameras everywhere

Flock Safety systems own the cameras and their operating system, and the city pays an annual fee of $3,500. If a camera is vandalized or stolen, Flock replaces the equipment. The cameras are motion activated and some run on solar power.

“So, there are two pieces to this whole thing, and I think that the more people understand it, they’ll understand the software is really where we are regulating the use of it,” said Hoar. “Police, municipalities, MassDOT, they’ve been putting cameras in public places for decades.”

Hoar notes that cameras play a role in our everyday lives and are ever increasing in popularity with homeowners and businesses with systems like Ring security cameras.

“The technology’s better, the resolution is better,” said Hoar. “But it’s the Flock software is where it starts to be cutting edge.”

What it does

Flock technology allows a photograph of a car and a license plate to be analyzed so that descriptors of that vehicle, the make model, color, damage, stickers on it, any identifying marks get basically digested by this artificial intelligence, said Hoar.

But the technology doesn’t run a plate for any operator information, he said.

“We can’t run a license plate unless it’s for law enforcement purposes, that’s the only reason we’re using Flock,” said Hoar.

The system has built-in safeguards, said Hoar.

“I go in and plug in a license plate to see if it’s been hit on by any Flock cameras. If it doesn’t hit, it doesn’t hit. If it does show up, I have to put in why I’m searching and the case number,” said Hoar.

The only time Flock would automatically search for a person’s information is if the police punched the name of a person of interest or if the vehicle was of interest in an investigation.

Flock also has the capability of searching through its database of photographs if there are partial license plate identifications or a description by a witness of a suspect vehicle like a red Honda.

There’s also the capability of putting the description of a stolen vehicle into a national index.

An investigative tool

“If a stolen vehicle gets reported in Somerset, or in Fall River, or in Westport, or in Taunton, and they put it in the system. The national database gets notified of that license plate, make, model and VIN number of the car. 

It gets put into Flock and it adds it to a nationwide hot list,” said Hoar.

Those hot lists for stolen cars have been around forever, he said.

“It used to be an old piece of paper, and the police officers would get it handed to them at roll call, and then they would go out looking around from the hot list on what cars were stolen,” said Hoar.

Because of Flock, the FRPD has been able to solve vehicle cases stolen from other jurisdictions. 

And police can customize their own hot lists, and they did in one case where they had a person of interest in a shooting that had a vehicle related to the case, Hoar said.

“We put that car in the hot list, because we were wondering if that car was going to come back in the city. Lo and behold, it comes back to the city. We were able to gather more surveillance on what’s going on, and who was in that car, because we knew that car was connected, but we didn’t know who in that car was the shooter,” said Hoar.

So, investigators had to gather more information to fill in those questions. 

“The fundamental police work still has to exist. Flock is just an enhancement to the investigation. an investigative tool,” said Hoar.