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Residents, advocates press Oxford council to review Flock Safety license‑plate cameras
Summary
Two residents urged Oxford City Council to pause or tighten oversight of Flock Safety automated license‑plate readers, citing reported errors, data breaches and uses in immigration and reproductive‑rights enforcement; police said internal audits and data‑sharing limits are being explored.
Residents and privacy advocates told Oxford City Council that the city should pause or strengthen oversight of its contract with Flock Safety, the private vendor that supplies automated license‑plate readers (ALPRs).
"Flock Safety's surveillance infrastructure is not a neutral public safety tool," said Linda Musmacy Kimball, who told the council the devices have been linked elsewhere to immigration enforcement, abortion monitoring and repeated incidents of stalking and erroneous stops. Kimball cited national tallies — including the figure she gave of 115,490 devices in roughly 6,000 communities and more than 87 communities that have deactivated Flock cameras — to argue the city should adopt strict guardrails and community engagement beyond a single public‑comment period. "Do democracies need to surveil their residents?" she asked.
Janice Dutton, a longtime Oxford resident, described personal stops and referenced research from organizations including the Institute for Justice and the ACLU to argue that ALPR errors can lead to dangerous police encounters. "Flock claims a 93% plate capture accuracy rate," Dutton said, then described cases where misreads led to wrongful detentions and lengthy incarcerations.
Chief Jones responded that the Oxford Police Department has reviewed ALPR operations and is pursuing internal steps: trimming the network, limiting outside data sharing, improving training, and initiating monthly audits. "We've examined drastically cutting down our network, to who we share this data with," Jones said, and asked whether the Police Community Relations and Review Commission (PCRRC) would like to hear the department's findings; council directed PCRRC to meet on August 6 and postponed further council action until its recommendation and the council's next meeting on August 18.
The council did not take formal action on the contract at the meeting but directed a coordinated review that includes a PCRRC hearing and an item on the Aug. 18 council agenda.
