Councilor Flynn Welcomes Flock Safety to South Boston Waterfront | Innovation & Safety Unite
The short version: Flock's own promotional video has a Boston councilor cheerleading its Seaport expansion, with zero mention of the privacy trade-offs of blanket ALPR coverage.
Our Take
Notice who made this video: Flock Safety itself. This isn't local news covering a city council decision — it's a corporate marketing reel starring a friendly elected official, dressed up as a story about "innovation" and "workforce development." When the company selling the cameras also produces the press conference footage, you should read every word of the script as an ad, not a civic update.
Councilor Flynn's enthusiasm glosses over what's actually being installed: networked license plate readers that log the movements of everyone driving through the Seaport, searchable by any agency with access to Flock's system, with little independent oversight of how long that data lives or who gets to query it. "Partnership" and "keeping residents safe and heard" sound nice, but they say nothing about audit logs, data-sharing agreements with ICE or other outside agencies, or whether residents actually got a meaningful say before the cameras went up.
Boston drivers deserve to know these cameras exist before they roll past one. Check our camera map to see what's already tracking the Seaport and beyond, and if you want to push back on unchecked ALPR expansion in your own neighborhood, our take-action page has the tools to start.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Flock, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.