McKee orders pause on new installations on Flock cameras
The short version: Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee has ordered a pause on new Flock Safety camera installations, a rare case of a state executive hitting the brakes on ALPR expansion.
Our Take
Credit to NBC 10 WJAR for breaking this one: Governor Dan McKee halting new Flock installations in Rhode Island is the kind of news we don't get nearly often enough. Most of the time these networks go up quietly, town by town, with little debate and even less oversight. A statewide pause, even a temporary one, means someone in power finally asked a question before more cameras went live.
But a pause is not a policy. Without knowing McKee's actual reasoning or what conditions would lift the halt, we'd caution readers against celebrating too hard. These systems have a way of resuming installation the moment public attention moves elsewhere, often with zero new guardrails on data sharing, retention, or who gets to query your plate history. The real test is what happens next: will Rhode Island use this window to pass real limits, or just wait out the news cycle?
If you're in Rhode Island, now is the time to make noise with your city council and state reps, not after the pause quietly ends. Check our camera map to see what's already been installed near you, and hit up our take-action page for tools to push local officials toward actual accountability instead of a temporary timeout.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of NBC 10 WJAR, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.