Town approves one-year ALPR pilot with Flock Safety amid privacy and effectiveness questions

The Narragansett Town Council voted unanimously on Sept. 3 to approve a one-year pilot contract with Flock Safety for four automatic license-plate recognition (ALPR) cameras at a cost of $12,600.

Chief Corrigan introduced Jonathan Paz, a government affairs manager for Flock Safety, who described the system as an investigative tool used to generate leads for crimes such as stolen vehicles, missing persons or active warrants. Paz said the company stores data in an encrypted cloud and that captured data are deleted after 30 days unless retained as part of an investigation. "We very much believe in that balance between public safety and making sure there's transparency in the process and the highest ethical use of this technology," Paz said.

Councilors questioned how the system would be used operationally. Councilor Frandy asked whether the system would trigger monitoring of people who repeatedly pass cameras; Paz and Chief Corrigan said searches are typically precipitated by an incident (for example, a reported break-in) and that trained detectives would run searches to develop leads, not to automatically stop or question drivers. The cameras are planned for four fixed locations intended to cover major ingress and egress points into town.

Several members of the public questioned whether the system would achieve the intended benefits and raised concerns about staff time required to use it. Catherine Silberto urged caution, saying the system was "labor intensive" and that somebody would have to feed information into the system to make it work. Town officials said the first year would be funded from drug forfeiture funds as a pilot and that the town solicitor will review the agreement before the town manager signs it.

The council approved the motion by voice vote. Town staff will evaluate results at the end of the pilot and return to the council with findings before seeking ongoing funding.