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Tiverton council approves ALPR purchase order subject to solicitor review after heated privacy debate
Summary
After hours of public opposition and a police/Flock Safety presentation, the Tiverton council moved to approve an automated license-plate reader purchase order—with the specific contract to be reviewed by the town solicitor and to include a termination-for-cause provision.
Tiverton councilors voted to approve an automated license-plate reader (ALPR) purchase order for the police department, subject to legal review and insertion of a termination-for-cause clause, after a lengthy public-comment period in which many residents raised privacy and transparency concerns.
Opponents at the microphone cited contract terms and data-ownership risks and urged the council to withhold approval until the town solicitor could review a full master services agreement. "Flock is really slimy... they can use process data any way they want," said a privacy advocate who testified the company's contracts contain provisions that effectively allow the vendor to retain processed data; several speakers asked for the town to produce the full contract under FOIA before any commitment.
The police chief defended the technology as an investigative tool and described internal safeguards: the department performs monthly audits of every search, requires case numbers for searches and limits access with individual logins. Chief representatives said the department has used ALPR hits in investigations ranging from stolen vehicles to a child-exploitation case and that images are stored in encrypted cloud infrastructure with a default 30-day retention. Karl Bach of Flock Safety described the system as producing still photos (not continuous video), encrypting data in transit and at rest, hosting data in AWS GovCloud, and maintaining an audit log for all searches.
Council debate focused on whether the council had the complete service agreement and whether the town could enforce data-breach provisions. A motion to approve the procurement subject to the solicitor's review and insertion of termination language passed on a second vote. The council did not publish a vote tally in the record; the motion was recorded as "approved subject to solicitor review."
