October 1, 2026
The Tiverton Town Council voted last month to add more Flock automated license plate readers in town. But Gov. Dan McKee has called for a pause on new cameras for 60 days pending a statewide review. A Flock camera is shown on Main Road in Tiverton on Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (Photo by Nolan Page/Rhode Island Current)
A colleague’s empty seat separated Deborah Janick from the three other members of the Tiverton Town Council present at its July 27 meeting. So too did her perspective on Flock Safety.
Janick was the only no as the council voted 3-1 — with three members absent — to approve the installation of additional Flock automated license plate reader cameras in town.
The decision following 40 minutes of deliberations interrupted by outbursts from opponents in the audience made the town an outlier in a summer of public resistance to Flock across the state and the country. The Atlanta-based private company’s 120,000 U.S. cameras photograph and identify vehicles using artificial intelligence to recognize license plates, bumper stickers, make, model and color. Police don’t need a warrant to search Flock’s system.
On the very same night, just 20 miles away from Tiverton, the South Kingstown Town Council voted unanimously to cancel its contract with Flock, citing concerns about privacy and the potential for misuse. Since then, Narragansett, Glocester, Lincoln and North Kingstown have canceled or paused their Flock programs.
“I value protection, but I’m concerned,” Janick told the town’s police chief and a Flock representative before the vote.
Also concerned is Gov. Dan McKee. On Tuesday, he called for a pause on the installation of new Flock cameras for 60 days while the Rhode Island State Police lead a review of the technology. The order allows existing cameras to continue operating.
“Automated license plate readers can be an important tool for law enforcement to solve crimes, recover stolen vehicles, and locate dangerous or missing individuals, but Rhode Islanders also have legitimate questions about privacy, transparency, and how this information is collected, stored, and shared,” McKee said.
In October 2025, when the state police launched a federally funded program to expand Rhode Island’s Flock network, 14 of the state’s 39 municipalities had active Flock cameras. Now at least 24 currently use or plan to install the technology.
The governor’s order renders Tiverton’s approval moot for the time being. It directs the Department of Public Safety to work with stakeholders like the Rhode Island Police Chiefs’ Association and the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns to review the technology and make recommendations on statewide policy governing its use.
The Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a leading opponent to Flock cameras in the state, applauded McKee’s action but said it will continue to call for municipalities to cancel existing contracts with Flock.
Flock has “kind of exploded” in the past two years, said Madalyn McGunagle, a policy analyst at the state’s ACLU and a leading critic of the technology in Rhode Island. She views the cameras as invasive surveillance that reveals “intimate and sensitive details about someone’s life.”
“They’ve become increasingly more normalized, and that really just infringes on continuous expectations of privacy,” McGunagle told Rhode Island Current. “As they become more and more normal, that expectation just erodes more.”
The ACLU continues to support legislation that would establish “clear and strict standards” around automated license plate readers. Rep. Matthew Dawson, an East Providence Democrat, sponsored bills calling for uniform policies regarding the cameras in the last two General Assembly sessions.
I value protection, but I’m concerned.
– Tiverton Town Councilor Deborah Janick, who voted against adding more Flock cameras on July 27
His 2026 bill (H8077), a collaboration between legislators, the ACLU and law enforcement, would have restricted the type of cases the cameras can be used for, created guidelines for data access and retention, established standards for transparency and required municipal council approval to use the technology. The bill was held for further study by the House Judiciary Committee.
The issue is Dawson’s “top priority” if he wins reelection, he said, and he’s optimistic about another bill’s chances in the legislature.
“I’m positive it’s going to happen next year,” the East Providence Democrat said.
Since 2021, Rhode Island municipalities have been independently signing contracts with Flock — starting with Cranston, Pawtucket and Woonsocket — without much pushback, gradually building a patchy network of the cameras in Rhode Island. A count last year by the ACLU estimated that Rhode Island had at least 295 of the cameras.
Much of the growth has come from the state police effort to unite the state’s splintered Flock landscape into a more cohesive network using $597,000 from a $4 million community policing grant. Rhode Island was one of three states — along with New Jersey and New York — to receive that amount, which is the maximum award given through the Anti-Heroin Task Force grant program designed to support heroin-related community policing.
The goal of the state police program was “to get as much coverage statewide for the protection of the state,” Maj. Marc Alboum, who is heading the effort, said.
Alboum said the cameras will lead to better surveillance to investigate drug trafficking cases in Rhode Island.
“It was to get the tools we need to properly investigate these cases and prosecute them,” he said.
The state police began work on ramping up the state’s Flock network after signing its contract with the company on Oct. 10, 2025. Of the 23 municipalities the state police approached to install Flock cameras since last December, 21 approved the technology, Alboum said. Only Warren and Portsmouth rejected the agency’s proposal.
Funded for three years, the program is set to provide 39 cameras throughout the state, with the first batch of new cameras installed through the initiative on June 23 in Providence, North Kingstown and East Greenwich, Alboum told Rhode Island Current.
Alboum said the cameras have already been useful in a murder investigation. He added that he feels people are quick to disregard positive stories about Flock, and that “nobody wants to hear it” when advocates try to disprove concerns about the technology.
“It’s frustrating, and it’s exhausting to try to explain what it really does and what it doesn’t do,” Alboum said. But he hopes to apply for another federal grant to continue the program beyond its initial three-year period.
To law enforcement and other advocates for the cameras, the technology is an innovative tool that only photographs license plates, which are already in public view on the road.
Supporters of the cameras regularly credit Flock’s role in the break in the investigation of the Brown University mass shooting last December. Providence police used an image that a Flock license plate reader captured of the suspected shooter’s vehicle to identify and track the rental car tied to his name. The photograph is branded with the company’s wordmark in the bottom left corner.
But McGunagle argued that history and recent terminations of Flock contracts weaken that argument. “We’ve seen public safety objectives met without the use of these cameras,” she said.
McGunagle also contended that Flock’s systems violate privacy by taking a public license plate and using it to create a traceable profile that can reveal details like where someone lives, works, attends school or goes to the doctor.
Critics raise other concerns about the security of information collected by Flock, with some claiming the data is accessible to hackers. In response, congressional lawmakers have called for an investigation into Flock’s data security. The company’s website says data is encrypted from creation to deletion.
Flock’s website also features an Aug. 13 announcement revising the company’s safeguards, part of its efforts to win stronger public trust as more and more communities push back against its cameras. Those efforts have also involved sending representatives to municipal council meetings across the country, including in Tiverton and South Kingstown.
“It is not judge and jury and executioner,” Flock’s senior public affairs director, Trevor Chandler, said of the technology at the South Kingstown Town Council’s July 27 meeting. “It is a tangible piece of evidence that your officers are trained to use so that they can take action.”
Flock’s new policy shortens how long data is retained from 30 days to seven. The ACLU has called the decrease “a step in the right direction” but said it doesn’t go far enough, instead recommending deleting data after 48 hours unless it’s flagged for an investigation.
Among other changes, Flock will also now require every search in its systems to be accompanied by a case number, which was previously optional, as well as mandate use of its auditing tool to flag suspicious use.
“We are not perfect, so we will keep listening, improving, and building a better standard for public safety technology together,” Flock CEO Garrett Langley wrote in the announcement.
The company did not immediately return a request for comment.
A June lawsuit filed by an East Providence woman against Cumberland and its police department shows a potential downside to giving law enforcement more access to the surveillance equipment.
The plaintiff, Eva Pizzarelli of East Providence, claims she was wrongfully arrested for reckless driving and eluding police after police allegedly misidentified her as the driver of a car who was failing to signal turns and led police on a brief chase before Cumberland officers called off the pursuit. Police relied on an image taken by a Flock camera, the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit alleges that the officers compared the Flock image with Pizzarelli’s Facebook profile and driver’s license photo to conclude that she matched the driver they were looking for. Police described the offending driver as having red hair, but Pizzarelli claims the photos the officers used were outdated and that her hair was dyed brown at the time of the incident on March 26, 2025. Cumberland officials have denied Pizzarelli’s allegations in court documents.
The case prompted neighboring Lincoln’s town administrator to pause installations of 12 approved Flock cameras, the Valley Breeze reported. Flock has said its license plate readers are only designed to capture photographs of passing cars and use technology to identify vehicles, not for facial recognition.
It’s frustrating, and it’s exhausting to try to explain what it really does and what it doesn’t do.
– Rhode Island State Police Maj. Marc Alboum
McGunagle also highlighted examples of the technology being used for federal immigration enforcement, as well as of police officers using Flock to track people seeking gender-affirming care and even romantic partners. A New Bedford police officer is under investigation for allegedly using Flock to follow her ex-girlfriend, The New Bedford Light reported.
“It’s also equally as troubling for the idea that someone way across the country could be misusing this information,” McGunagle said. “It’s not just a local problem. It’s this nationwide sharing model that makes it a big issue.”
But McGunagle said legislation and guidelines — like those ordered by McKee — around the technology’s use could alleviate some critics’ concerns. Dawson, who was also an opponent to the cameras when he first sponsored a bill regulating them, agreed.
Dawson said he initially wanted to halt the use of cameras entirely. But that changed when he was filling out paperwork at the East Providence police station and witnessed Flock’s utility firsthand. He said that officers and dispatchers used the cameras to locate and stop an individual believed to be suicidal in just 10 minutes.
“I don’t want Big Brother watching me,” Dawson said. “But it’s proven as a successful tool for law enforcement.”
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Courtesy of Rhode Island Current
