QUINCY, Mass. — The Quincy City Council has approved a new ordinance giving councilors greater oversight of surveillance technology used across the city following concerns from residents about privacy and automatic license plate readers.
A group of Quincy residents rallied outside Monday night’s City Council meeting, urging city leaders to get rid of Flock cameras and other automatic license plate readers, commonly known as ALPRs.
“We don’t want the mayor to adopt these new cameras overnight,” resident Ethan King said. “We want public process. We want oversight.”
Other residents voiced similar concerns about the technology.
“Nobody wants to be surveilled, so I would like the city to listen,” Quincy resident Chuck Tryon said.
Several residents brought their concerns inside the meeting before councilors ultimately voted to approve the new surveillance technology ordinance.
The change will give the City Council more oversight of surveillance technology, including ALPRs, and require a public hearing before the city signs a contract with a new surveillance technology company.
The debate comes as Quincy considers the future of license plate reader technology in the city.
Quincy’s police chief said the city’s existing Flock cameras are still in place but have been deactivated. Despite moving away from Flock, the chief said he has not given up on ALPR technology and hopes the city will eventually approve another system that can help officers solve crimes more quickly.
“We may have moved on from Flock, but I haven’t given up on ALPR technology,” Chief Mark Kennedy said.
He said he is trying to balance concerns from residents and city councilors with his responsibility to protect public safety.
“The mayor tasked me with the responsibility to run this police department and look out for the public safety in the city, and that’s what I do,” he said. “So I’m doing my best to listen to the council, listen to members of the community, but ultimately the buck stops with me, and I’m going to be responsible with how we use this technology.”
Some city councilors emphasized that their concerns are not necessarily about the Quincy Police Department itself, but about what technology companies and other third parties could potentially do with information collected by surveillance systems.
“We believe in you, chief. We just don’t believe in these technology companies, and we want to have an ability to understand those decisions,” City Councilor Anne Mahoney said.
Although the Flock system has been deactivated, the city plans to explore other potential vendors as it considers using surveillance technology as a public safety tool.
Boston 25 News reached out to the mayor’s office for an update but had not heard back.
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