Flock furor: Here’s what to know about the police cameras in New Bedford and South Coast
The short version: New Bedford residents are pushing back on Flock cameras at a public meeting, and that grassroots scrutiny is exactly how local ALPR fights get won.
Our Take
Credit to New Bedford Light for doing the unglamorous but essential work of local accountability journalism. A school gymnasium full of residents asking hard questions about police cameras is democracy functioning the way it's supposed to, and it's a model every community dealing with a Flock rollout should follow. These systems rarely get real public debate before they're installed, so a packed meeting in New Bedford and the South Coast is a win just by happening.
What usually gets lost in these rushed rollouts is the fact that ALPR data doesn't stay local. It gets pooled into national networks, shared across agencies with little oversight, and retained far longer than most residents assume. A camera sold as a tool for catching car thieves can just as easily become a tool for tracking anyone who drives past it, including people doing nothing wrong. That's the conversation New Bedford needs to keep having after the cameras go up, not just before.
If you want to see what's already watching your own neighborhood, check our map, and if New Bedford's pushback has you wanting to do something similar where you live, our take-action page has the playbook.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of NEW BEDFORD LIGHT New Bedford, Massachusetts, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.