Wakefield Pulls Its Flock Cameras Days After Quincy Switched Vendors. The Two Took Different Exits

Wakefield police have disabled the town's five Flock Safety license plate reader cameras and plan to remove them, Police Chief Steven Skory announced this week, citing residents' concerns about privacy and possible misuse of the technology, according to Patch.

The decision followed an Oct. 19 Town Council meeting where the department's use of automated license plate readers was discussed. The cameras had been in use since 2024. Skory said they helped police solve crimes, recover stolen property and find missing people. "While many express their trust in our officers and how we use the system, they are deeply concerned about the technology itself," he said in a statement. "Despite the benefits we have experienced from its use, after careful reflection I feel it is in the best interest of the community to discontinue the use of our Flock system."

Skory said access had been restricted to detectives and command staff, and that every vehicle search required an officer's identity, a lawful reason and a Wakefield police case number. "Use of the network was never intended to become a source of discord in our community," he said.

Quincy, the largest Flock user in the region, made a different choice. In a release dated Oct. 27 on the city's website, Mayor Tom Koch and Police Chief Mark Kennedy said the department had deactivated its Flock system and would move to license plate reader cameras made by Axis Communications, integrated with OdinEye software, which the city said would let the department "maintain sole ownership of any data." Its rules limiting searches to active criminal cases, limiting which personnel can use the system and wiping all data within 14 days remain in place.

Quincy had 50 Flock cameras, Kennedy told Boston.com, far more than most Massachusetts communities, the majority of which have reported fewer than 10. The change came after an Oct. 19 City Council meeting at which councillors voted 8-1 on a resolution urging the mayor and chief to remove the cameras.

"This is a strong good-faith effort to strike a balance between the investigative value of this technology and the legitimate concerns raised by our residents and across the nation about the Flock system," Koch said. Kennedy said, "We can acknowledge legitimate privacy concerns without assuming that every potential misuse is an actual misuse." Both said the cameras capture images of vehicles and plates, not faces, and are not used for surveillance.

The distinction matters for what residents were objecting to. In Wakefield, the chief said the concern was the technology itself, and the town is ending plate-reader use. In Quincy, the city is keeping plate readers but changing the vendor and data arrangement. Boston.com noted that OdinEye describes itself as an "AI-driven threat intelligence" platform.

The trend is statewide. WBUR, citing the ACLU, reported that more than 40 Massachusetts communities have stopped using Flock in the past 18 months. Boston.com has reported that New Bedford fired two officers over alleged misuse of Flock cameras and that a Revere officer served a suspension after using the cameras to track a former partner.

Unanswered: what Quincy's new system will cost compared with its Flock contract, and whether Flock data from either community was shared with outside agencies before shutdown.