Little Compton residents are expressing concern about the police department’s proposal to install three automatic license plate reading cameras, also known as FLOCK cameras, in town.

Last month, Little Compton Police Chief Scott Raynes spoke to the town council about his hope to install the cameras in town, referring to them as another tool for the small police force. The cameras would cost $3,000 per year and would be controlled by the town’s deputy chief and detective units, he said. Photos taken by the cameras would be uploaded to an Internet storage cloud and deleted after 30 days. According to Raynes, all data is owned by the police force.

At a council meeting late last month, councilor Gary Mataronas brought up privacy concerns similar to the concerns expressed in Portsmouth earlier this year before that town's town council rejected an unrelated state police plan to install one there. And since then, several residents have written to the council expressing their own concerns over lack of privacy.

“I believe that resident privacy is a priority and these cameras will capture images of much more than just license plates,” Ellen Kinnane wrote in a May 4 letter to the town council. Kinnane also wrote that she believes that the police department has “ample skill” to keep the residents safe.

Resident Ken Demers also expressed opposition to the cameras in a letter dated May 5. In his letter, he expressed concerns about buying the cameras without policies or laws in place regarding their use.

Meanwhile, Cushing Anderson had concerns about the FLOCK system itself. While he praised Raynes and the police department and said that he believes they will act in good faith, he claimed that the FLOCK system has been misused by others. He cited reports that accused outside sources of abusing FLOCK data by using it to track political activists and direct immigration enforcement.

“We have the benefit of seeing how this technology has gone wrong elsewhere, including in our own region. Little Compton should not expose its residents to the same risk by joining the network prematurely,” Anderson wrote on May 5.

Raynes had previously stated that privacy concerns are based on misconceptions about the cameras, and said the data collected is quite limited:

“It gets a picture of the back of your car. It does not tell you who is in the car,” Raynes said at the April 23 council meeting.

Town council president Pat McHugh said last week that the town council is still waiting for more information about the potential upside and downside of FLOCK cameras, and plans to discuss it more in depth at a future meeting.

“I think it's going to take multiple meetings because it's an important subject and it seems in Little Compton it takes a little while to get the word out. I want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to comment on it.”