Police nationwide tout their efficacy in solving crimes, including recent local tragedies. Citizens and privacy advocates say they increasingly line the horizon of a slippery slope towards an Orwellian surveillance state.

Objectively, the rapid rise of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) — with the market currently monopolized via cameras made by Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based startup not even a decade old — is not a subject up for debate.

Although there is no authoritative number on how many ALPRs were active in the past few years, independent watchdog groups that identify and map them had confirmed just over 4,000 were installed at the end of 2024 by the handful of companies that produce them.

In 2026 — now fueled by over $1 billion in private venture capital investment — Flock has pulled away from all competition, advertising on its website as having installed more than 120,000 cameras in 49 states, which perform more than 20 billion vehicle scans every month.

The ALPR mapping site, DeFlock.org, identified 137,910 ALPRs (from all manufacturers) installed across the country as of Sept. 2, 2026.

East Providence got in early on the rising wave of the booming technology, with the city council approving a contract on May 2, 2023 to install 22 Flock cameras throughout the city’s major corridors. Police confirmed following an APRA request that 20 of those cameras were currently active (two Flock cameras were listed as not installed). A 23rd camera identified as a “Flex Camera” was also listed as not currently installed.

At the time, then-East Providence Police Chief Christopher Francesconi told the council that the ALPRs were a “tremendous public safety tool” that would assist them with investigating a wide array of crimes. He said they were already being utilized in Cranston, Warwick, and Providence.

Francesconi also preemptively spoke to anticipated concerns about the mass collection of data such a system would require, and what was supposed to happen to that data under the contract offered by Flock.

“It’s not tied to any type of personal, identifiable information. It takes a picture of the rear of the vehicle, which is stored for 30 days. That’s it. And then it’s deleted from the system,” he said. “This information is ours. It’s not sold by this company in any way, shape, or form. It’s a picture, and that’s all that it is.”

Later in the same meeting, Francesconi presciently alluded to the now-ubiquitous criticism that the data could potentially be misused.

“It’s all easily audited. Everything leaves an audit trail. Officers can’t simply go into the system on a fishing expedition. There has to be an associated case number with it,” he said, stating that there would be four audits done annually of “40 random searches” to ensure that policy is being adhered to. “We handle very sensitive information on a daily basis, and we have strict guidelines in place on how that information is handled. Our officers know that, and it’s highly regulated and it’s used for very specific reasons…This is a law enforcement tool only, to be used for law enforcement purposes only.”

The council unanimously approved the five-year contract, which amounts to a total expense of $297,000 and runs through 2028.

Local governments respond

Within the last couple of months, public blowback to the rapid expansion of ALPRs, and specifically to Flock, has intensified. According to a recent “Fortune” article, residents in 36 different states have vandalized or destroyed ALPRs, and 82 total contracts have been terminated since 2021.

Local governments have taken note of the unease.

Locally, Narragansett, Glocester, Lincoln, and North Kingstown have canceled their Flock contracts or paused their use of Flock cameras. Tiverton, after a testy meeting over the summer where the council approved the installation of additional Flock cameras, recently backtracked that move and decided not to renew their contract or add more cameras — at least for the time being.

That decision was made in part due to Governor Dan McKee’s call to pause any new ALPR installations across Rhode Island for 60 days, which he announced on Aug. 18., while the state conducts a “comprehensive review” of how to create better statewide standards for the technology; a move heralded by the Rhode Island ACLU, as well as one local lawmaker who has made legislating a better Flock policy a priority.

“Last year I got the ACLU involved to try to come to an agreement as to how we can handle this stuff to solve crime but be fair to people and not have it be abused,” said Rep. Matthew Dawson, who represents District 65 (East Providence) in the Rhode Island House of Representatives and is currently seeking re-election against two primary challengers.

(Note: comments from Rep. Dawson come from a candidates forum held by the League of Women Voters of Rhode Island on Monday, Aug. 31, which was moderated by this author).

Dawson said that initially he was fully against ALPRs, joking that he had read “1984” too young and had been fearful of “Big Brother” ever since. His attitude on the issue changed, however, since he saw multiple instances of the cameras being used to solve crimes, including the Brown University shooter, or to save lives, such as a case where he saw East Providence Police locate and assist a woman who had insinuated she was likely to self-harm “within 10 minutes”.

Dawson said that the power of the cameras to do good cannot be denied, but neither can the necessity to make a statewide policy to prevent misuse of the data.

“It’s my first order of business, if I’m fortunate enough to get re-elected,” he said. “We’ve got to figure out a way to get this thing done in a regulatory manner that can’t be abused.”

Residents speak out

At the Aug. 11 meeting of the East Providence City Council, members of the public made their distaste for Flock’s presence in the city clear during public comments.

“I am very concerned about civil liberties being abused,” said Rumford resident, Linda Vaughan Dubois, citing a case where a Texas woman was tracked across multiple states and ultimately arrested after she had an abortion. She also said she feared for East Providence’s immigrant populations if the federal government decided to utilize the camera network to target them. She called on the city to cancel its contract and remove the cameras.

“What I have to say is I do not trust the federal government at this time to obey laws. They break them and then they prosecute. There are people paying the price,” she said. “I am asking the East Providence City Council to stand with women, to stand with immigrants, to stand for civil liberties.”

John Renquinha, a Riverside resident, took to the microphone to deliver his concerns about the use of the cameras. He stated that Flock has around a 7% “ratio of mistakes” when it comes to arrests made utilizing the cameras. “There is a liability factor here,” he said.

On the point of liability, an East Providence woman recently sued the Town of Cumberland after being arrested in East Providence following a hit from Flock on her vehicle, which turned out to not be connected to the alleged crime at all.

Renquinha said that it was concerning that these types of concerns and potential privacy issues weren’t brought up by members of the city council when approving the contract in 2023, and to imagine what setting a precedent now — where mass surveillance is justified as a necessity to solve crimes — means for the future.

“If we are here now, picture what it will be 20 years from now,” he said. “If this is what we’re going to do, mass surveillance through our cities and towns, there’s a reason these cities and towns are canceling these contracts and getting out of this. It’s just a bit too much, too quickly. It hasn’t even been tested, these waters.”

Council responds
Council President Bob Rodericks said at the Aug. 11 meeting that he was not in favor of canceling the contract with Flock, but that any renewal would be subject to a public hearing.

“I have pledged that any time we are discussing a renewal for additional cameras, it will not happen without a full public hearing,” he said in response to Vaughan Dubois. “People like yourself, your church, others, and anyone can come in and give us their opinions.”

Rodericks added later that he hadn’t heard of any abuses of power occurring in East Providence, and so for the time being his stance would remain in favor of the benefits the cameras provide.

“I stay a supporter until we’re shown that there are abuses beyond the benefits, and I don’t see that,” he said.

Ward 4 Councilman Rick Lawson, who sponsored the proposal to approve the contract with Flock in 2023, held firm on his support of the cameras and the police department that utilizes them.

“I strongly support the Flock cameras. I strongly support the integrity of the men and women of the East Providence Police Department,” he said. “There are built-in protections. We can go in and ask for an audit of who accessed the cameras, for what reason, at what time. So there is accountability.”

Council Vice President Frank Rego seemed to take offense to Vaughan Dubois’s comments that the system could potentially be abused in Rhode Island like she argued it had been in Texas.

“Having a son who is a Rhode Island State Trooper, what they do, they are not a Texas State Trooper…The Rhode Island State Troopers would never use that to do something like that,” he said.

Renquinha, during his time, urged the council to not only consider the situation as it exists now, when it is policed by people they consider to be trustworthy and who follow the rules, but further into the future.

“Can we guarantee that we still have an ethical police chief 10 years from now?” he asked. “Can we guarantee that 10 years from now we have an ethical council that will remain on top of things? Can we guarantee that we have an ethical, honorable mayor that’s going to look out for the residents 10 years from now? Or does this technology get in the wrong hands, and we all are victims to it?

“It just puts the public in a very vulnerable situation.”