Flock cameras cause privacy concerns for Agawam residents

AGAWAM — Picture this: It is rush hour on a weekday. Thousands of vehicles travel city streets to and from their destinations.

An Amber Alert is issued, including the license plate number of a car wanted in connection. Police use license plate recognition cameras to identify the suspect’s car and the area it is in, leading to an arrest.

This is how license plate recognition technology, like the Flock Safety equipment deployed in Agawam, is supposed to be used. But while police nationwide have long availed themselves of the tool to solve crimes, Agawam residents have become wary about what they see as a potential invasion of privacy.

License plate recognition cameras use artificial intelligence to identify license plate numbers, as well as the color, make and model of vehicles. The data can be shared with other law enforcement agencies and is used to locate suspects and gather evidence of crimes.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, at least 80 of the state’s 351 cities and towns use Flock Safety equipment.

However, not every municipality is a happy customer. Cambridge deactivated their Flock license plate recognition cameras and ended their contract with the company in October 2025 after two cameras were installed that the city was unaware of. There is also a debate over Flock cameras in Framingham due to privacy concerns.

Over the past few months, Agawam residents have voiced similar concerns at City Council meetings. On May 18, Catherine MacDougal expressed distrust of Flock Safety, saying she felt they approach municipalities without full disclosure. She asked that council to investigate the details of the contract and how the equipment can be accessed. A resident told Reminder Publishing that the cameras have become polarizing among residents. He expressed concern, not just with Flock, but with the use of the technology as a whole, remarking that federal agencies are seeking access to traffic camera databases.

Concern about the license plate recognition cameras has grown so much that City Council President Anthony Russo has invited a member of the Police Department to the June 15 City Council meeting to answer the council’s questions about the equipment.

Russo said he is reserving judgment on use of the cameras until after the meeting. “I will form my full opinion after a representative from the Police Department comes to one of our meetings so we can get our questions answered. Talking to different police officials in Western Mass. area and then listening to Agawam residents, I am hearing different views. So, until I get full answers to some of my concerns, I won’t have an accurate opinion.”

Use of Flock and other license plate recognition companies has become controversial in municipalities nationwide. To combat this, Flock’s website contains multiple blog posts and a frequently-asked-questions page assuring people that the product is secure. The company’s website insists that concerns about “protest-related searches or inappropriate search terms… reflect isolated instances across thousands of agencies and millions of searches.”

Flock states that collected data is encrypted, only stored for 30 days using Amazon Web Services cloud storage and is not sold to third parties. The company emphasizes that the municipality and local law enforcement are in complete control of accessing and sharing the data. In January 2026, Flock updated its website to explicitly state, “Flock does not work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Communities control federal data access. ICE does not have direct access to Flock cameras, systems or data, unless the agencies that control their data expressly and deliberately allow it.”

While the company does not have a contract with ICE, until 2025, Flock had participated in pilot programs with several federal agencies. Since November 2025, any agency nationwide can self-enroll in immigration and reproductive care search filters.

Even in cases where agencies do not intentionally share Flock data with federal departments, user error can create privacy breaches. Bend, Oregon, enrolled its police department in a one-year pilot using four Flock license plate recognition cameras. In December 2025, the Oregon Law Center found that federal agencies accessed the camera database 279 times over three weeks in 2025. According to The Weekly Source, a local news outlet, a Bend police officer inadvertently left the Flock database lookup search parameters on the factory setting of “national,” rather than “state” or “local.” The municipality has since deactivated its Flock cameras and announced it will not renew its contract.

Agawam began its contract with Flock after Police Lt. Edward McGovern applied on behalf of the department for a grant from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s Community Mitigation Fund to lease six license plate recognition cameras. The grant for $57,900 provides funding for a three-year lease of the units.

According to the grant application, “The department hopes to place Flock cameras strategically throughout Agawam in hopes that they will be instrumental in solving crimes.” It also stated, “These tools would enable us to study the traffic patterns of motorists by using their data analysis tools” and in “identifying suspects involved in crimes that occur within the City of Agawam and would aid the City of Springfield.”

Russo said the City Council was aware of the cameras prior to their installation. “We were told of cameras being put up. When I asked the Agawam [Police Department] about them, I was told these assist the police in the case of an amber alert and other crimes. I was also informed we were one of the only communities in the area that wasn’t using them yet,” Russo said.

Reminder Publishing reached out to Mayor Christopher Johnson about the city’s use of Flock cameras. His Chief of Staff Barbara Bard recommended attending the June 15 City Council meeting.