Should automatic license plate readers be used to solve crimes?
The short version: Cheshire residents pushed back on Flock ALPRs at a town council meeting while police defended the cameras, and NBC Connecticut captured a debate now spreading to Milford too.
Our Take
Credit to NBC Connecticut for putting a camera in the room where this fight is actually happening: a town council meeting, not a press release. What's notable here isn't that police defended Flock — they always do — it's that Cheshire residents showed up in person to ask for the cameras to come down, and the council punted rather than vote. That's not a win, but it's not nothing. It means someone finally forced local officials to admit this deserves a real public conversation instead of a quiet vendor renewal.
The 'important investigative tool' line gets repeated in every one of these meetings, and it's worth noticing what it never comes with: numbers. How many cases solved, how many plates scanned, how many innocent drivers logged and stored just in case. Without that, 'important tool' is a talking point, not evidence. Milford apparently has the same debate brewing, which tells you this isn't a Cheshire problem — it's a Connecticut problem, and probably a your-town problem too.
If you're in Cheshire, Milford, or anywhere else with Flock hardware quietly logging every car that passes, check our camera map to see what's already been installed near you, and use our take-action resources before your town council decides for you that a public info session is close enough to consent.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of NBC Connecticut, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.