Barnstable council grills police on license-plate readers, seeks policy and contract review

Barnstable police presented their use of Flock automated license-plate readers (ALPRs) at the April 30 council meeting and described operational benefits for cases such as stolen vehicles, narcotics investigations and missing persons.

Detective Sergeant Kevin Connley explained the system captures a single plate image and timestamp at a fixed location and that the town retains ALPR data for 30 days. He said the devices do not perform facial recognition and that officers use targeted "surgical" searches in active investigations. Chief Gene Childish and the district attorney's office described cases where readers helped locate suspects and recover stolen vehicles and linked ALPR evidence to prosecutions.

Councilors immediately focused on civil-liberties, contracting and oversight. Councilor Berdick said the town's agreement with Flock follows a terms-of-service model rather than a traditional contract and raised concerns that Flock can unilaterally update its terms and set a choice-of-law clause (recently amended to Georgia). Councilor Lucky and others urged caution about settings that allow cross-jurisdictional or nationwide sharing and flagged a setting labeled "reproductive-care searches," which several councilors found alarming even though presenters said the setting exists to allow customers to disable certain hot-list categories for jurisdictions where particular investigations may be legally sensitive.

Town counsel and the police described legal constraints under Massachusetts case law, pointing to a Supreme Judicial Court decision that found point-in-time ALPR use is not blanket surveillance, and they emphasized audit trails, scheduled audits, and state-specific restrictions (e.g., no traffic-camera citations without human review). The town attorney told council staff were reviewing the vendor's current terms and that the contract's choice-of-law provision will require discussion.

Next steps and council action: After extended questioning the council asked for a dedicated policy discussion and requested the item return to the agenda for a formal vote to authorize or limit ALPR use and to resolve contractual protections. Several councilors urged that any expansion be accompanied by a written ordinance or formal policy, clear audit procedures, and legal review of data-sharing and retention terms.