Local News
City officials have said that the company’s cameras pose local data concerns that outweigh their assistance to law enforcement.
Salem has joined a list of several local cities and towns that have abandoned Flock Safety’s surveillance systems. Flock Safety/Handout
July 26, 2026 | 11:19 AM
2 minutes to read
Salem has joined a growing list of Massachusetts cities and towns that have abandoned Flock Safety cameras due to data privacy concerns.
City officials announced Thursday that a contract with Flock Safety, a Georgia-based surveillance technology manufacturer, would not be renewed. Salem will also remove its currently installed Flock Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs).
“The City has determined that there are insufficient protections for the ALPR data generated by Flock’s systems,” Salem Mayor Dominick Pangallo and Police Chief Lucas Miller said in a joint statement. “Such data should be owned and used only in furtherance of Salem’s public safety priorities.”
Flock cameras have been installed in numerous communities statewide and have played crucial parts in assisting law enforcement. However, there have been widespread concerns about the enhanced surveillance system coming at the cost of privacy rights.
“The technology has some real positives for law enforcement,” Matt Ross, a professor of public policy and economics with expertise in policing at Northeastern University, told Boston.com in December. “But now is the time to pass legislation to put some guardrails around this because frankly, there really are not.”
Salem police have relied on the license plate readers for criminal investigations, missing persons searches, and hit-and-run incidents. They are currently installed at several high-traffic intersections as well as ingress and egress points to the city, officials said.
The security technology has “played a principal part in nearly every major investigation that has occurred in recent memory in Salem,” according to the statement. These include the arrests of suspects in the bombing of a Satanic temple; shootings on Horton Street, Albion Street, and Pope Street; two rapes; and “numerous other felonies including stabbings, armed robberies, and breaking and entering.”
City officials acknowledged the value of security technology but expressed concern over inadequate local data control. Flock ALPRs will therefore be replaced with more secure units that “still assist the department in keeping all people in Salem safe,” Pangallo and Miller said.
Salem is one of many local communities to reject Flock Safety cameras over data concerns. In June, Framingham police announced that the city would not renew its contract after months of public debate and resident advocacy.
Last October, the Cambridge City Council voted unanimously to pause the use of the cameras just months after approving them. After Flock installed two more cameras in late November “without the City’s awareness,” Cambridge officially ended its contract the following month.
Other communities, including Brookline, Natick, and Watertown, have successfully pushed back on Flock during installation plans and pilot tests. Officials have widely expressed enthusiasm for beefed-up surveillance in concept, but Flock’s data controversies have left them looking for alternatives.
“I believe that license plate reader technology is a very valuable tool in legitimate law enforcement, but it is a form of invasive surveillance by the government that, in normal times, we probably would accept as a price we pay for law and order,” Brookline Select Board Chair Bernard Greene told Boston.com in October 2025. “But we’re not living in normal times.”
Sign up for the Today newsletter
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
