2026-10-06 - City Council

00:14Good evening. I would like to call this  public hearing uh for Tuesday, October 6,

00:182026 at 6 PM to order. A public hearing of the  Quinsey City Council Oversight Committee. The

00:25public hearing tonight concerns council order  2026 104 regarding the city of Quinsey's use

00:33of flock technology. Good evening everyone. Thank  you for coming out tonight to share your concerns,

00:39express your support, and participate in these  important discussions. We welcome different

00:45perspectives and I ask that everyone treat our  speakers and guests and one another with respect.

00:51I want to thank the Quinsey Police Department  for everything its officers and staff do every

00:55day for the citizens of Quinsey. We appreciate  their service and their dedication to keeping

01:01our community safe. Tonight's hearing is to give  residents and counselors an opportunity to better

01:07understand flock cameras and their use in Quinsey  and questions surrounding them. I also want to

01:12recognize the chief of police, Mark Kennedy, for  inviting counselors to the police headquarters

01:18to meet with him and members of his command  staff, Captain Ward and Lieutenant Flareity,

01:24uh to demonstrate how flock how the flock system  works in an effort to provide full transparency.

01:31The residents of Quinsey are well served by our  chief and I believe he has made many efforts to

01:36protect our residents civil liberties while  maximizing their safety. Before I begin,

01:42I want to explain how tonight's hearing will  proceed. Tonight's purpose is to listen,

01:48gather information, and to ask questions. We  will not be taking any motions on the flock

01:54order tonight. A vote to extend the public hearing  will um will concern only if time allotted for the

02:01public testimony. So, it's 45 minutes. If we  need more than 45 minutes, we'll take a vote

02:06for another 15 minutes. And uh if that if we need  to go over that 15 minutes, we'll pause the public

02:12hearing. We'll go into speaking with our guests  and then at the end of that uh we'll go back into

02:18the public hearing. Uh anyone wishing to speak in  favor or in opposition to this order should sign

02:24in on the sheet at the back which is out there in  the it's out there. There's two sheets. One is if

02:30you just want to um sign in that you support or  you you don't support it and the other one is a

02:36signin sheet for if you want to speak. Okay.  Um, when your name is called, please come to

02:42the podium and state your name and address for  the record. If you do not wish to speak again,

02:47but would like to show your opposition record,  please indicate that on the sheet again outside

02:52at the back of the chamber. All remarks must  relate directly to Flock. So, this is not like

02:58open forum during the city council meetings.  This is a public hearing just on flock. And

03:03that's what we're talking about. Um, when you're  three and you have three minutes. So when your

03:08three minutes have expired, please conclude your  remarks so that the next resident can speak. This

03:13will help give everyone a fair opportunity to be  heard. At the end of the initial 45 minutes, if

03:21additional time is needed, I'll ask the council to  vote to extend for 15 minutes. As I said before,

03:25if everyone wishing to speak has been heard, we  will close the public hearing. If residents are

03:31still waiting to speak, we will recess the public  hearing and open the oversight committee meeting

03:36to hear from our invited guests. Each guest  will have approximately 10 to 15 minutes to

03:43present. After their presentations, counselors  will have an opportunity to ask them questions.

03:49Many of those questions are the questions that  we collected during um the last two weeks uh

03:55waiting for this public hearing to commence.  Once that question and answer period concludes,

04:01we will reconvene the public hearing if necessary  um to hear from residents who may still be waiting

04:07to speak. When everyone wishing to speak has  been heard, we will close the public hearing

04:13once the committee's discussion is complete and  will adjourn. And again, I just want to thank you

04:18um for coming out tonight and just remind everyone  to be thoughtful, respectful, and productive

04:23because this will allow this to uh go a little bit  uh faster. One another thing I want to do is uh

04:30during open forum a lot of times a person talks,  sits down, and then we call the other person,

04:36anyone who played baseball when they were younger.  You know, there's always being on deck. So,

04:40uh we have a list of uh speakers. So, I'm going to  hopefully have, you know, two or three people in

04:46line just so that way we can kind of move people  along so we don't have as much downtime. Also,

04:52before we begin, I want to just do some um  introductions uh just so everyone knows who

04:58um everybody is, and that includes our our guests.  So, we'll actually start uh with our guests. So,

05:03we have uh Chief of Police Mark Kennedy. Here is  right there. We have Captain Ward and Lieutenant

05:10Polarity. Uh we also have uh I don't know  if he's here yet. B our district attorney,

05:16Michael Morrisy, is also going to be here, but  I don't think he's here just yet. Um, we have

05:21Gideon Epstein, the policy council at the ACLU.  We have Matthew Ross, professor of economics at

05:30Northeastern University. Um, we have Brian Hurley.  I don't know if he's There he is. Brian Hurley, a

05:36Quinsey resident and systems engineer. And we have  Maxfield Cape Capron. Capron, thank you. A Quinsey

05:43resident who's representing our local civic group  of raising awareness of flock. I also want to take

05:50just a few minutes to introduce the city council  members just because there may be people in the

05:55audience who aren't regular attendees here  and may not know uh their city councilors.

06:00So we have Virginia Ryan. She's the ward 4 city  counselor. If you live in West Quinsey, she's

06:06she's your ward counselor. West Quinsey, Southwest  Quinsey, Brewers Corner. Over there we have Ward

06:122 counselor Richard Ash. He represents um Quinsey  Point. Uh, Pens Hill, P of Quinsey Center, Faxon

06:20Park. Thank you. So, if you were living in that  area, he's your representative. We have councelor

06:25at large, uh, Susan Yuan, who represents the whole  city. We have ward six uh, city councelor Deborah

06:31Riley, who represents North Quinsey, Atlantic,  Squantum, Marina Bay. Uh, we have the mayor's,

06:39uh, chie chief of staff here as a representative  on the council to represent the mayor. We have the

06:44um clerk of committee here, Jen Manning. I'm  David Jacobs. I'm the ward one city councelor.

06:50I represent Adam Shore, Germantown, How's  Neck, Marry Mount, Post Island, uh part of

06:56Quinsey Center, and part of Quinsey Point. We have  councelor and council president Ann Mahoney. She's

07:02counselor at large. And we have ward three city  councelor Walter Huby who represents Wallist Hill,

07:08parts of Wallist, Montlair, and parts of North  Quinzy. Little bit of west coins. Little bit of

07:13west coins. I know the lines are a little funky in  there, but uh we're comprised we make up the city

07:18council and we have some other city councilors  who just who aren't here yet, but they will be uh

07:23joining us. So, um with that in mind, um I'm going  to start we'll start um the hearing. So, we have

07:32um Andrew Carlen, John Fitz, Maurice, and Mark  Ko. So, if you guys can stand up in that order.

07:45Is the podium. Go ahead, Mr. Carlen.

07:52Andrew Carlen, 63 Brook Road. Um, good  evening, counselors, and thank you for

07:57the time. I'm speaking tonight as a father, as  a veteran, and a proud resident of Quinsey. Um,

08:04I'm eager to hear from Chief Kennedy and  the experts here to get a little bit more

08:07information tonight. Um, I would love to stand  here and speak legalistically about privacy

08:14rights and how the Fourth Amendment  should be applied in the digital age,

08:18but such a tone would not be worthy of the  moment. It's not my nature to be an angry person,

08:24but I wake up angry every single day. angry at a  federal administration that sends masked secret

08:31police with a budget larger than the US Marine  Corps into towns and cities across this country

08:36to terrorize communities. Angry at a bloodless  taxpayer funded network of private prisons

08:44responsible for the deaths of perhaps as many as  60 detainees in its custody in the past two years.

08:50These are the things we were taught in school  lay behind the Iron Curtain in the Cold War.

08:56These are facts that profane the service of  those of us who put on a uniform and took an

09:01oath in good faith to uphold our constitution. We  have learned not from due diligence on the part

09:07of the city, but from public records requests that  our system here in Quinsey has been queried by CBP

09:14for immigration enforcement. We have learned that  has been used to surveil first amendment protected

09:19demonstrations such as no kings rallies. We have  learned that our city has been perhaps unwittingly

09:27collaborating in a national authoritarian project  without the knowledge or consent of the residents.

09:35The mayor has spoken about the efficacy of the  system for solving crimes, but refuses to engage

09:41on the substance of concerns that we now know  were not hypothetical. If the mayor has no problem

09:48with our city aiding and abetting the Trump  administration's domestic agenda, I would prefer

09:53he state that plainly instead of obfuscating and  hiding behind ALPR industry talking points. If

09:59that's the debate he wants to have, so so be  it. And he can also explain how to square that

10:06position with the Protect Act, the state law that  prohibits the use of law enforcement resources

10:10in the Commonwealth for federal immigration  enforcement. It has been less than a month

10:16since this topic was last before the city council  and in that time over a dozen additional towns

10:22and municipalities in Massachusetts have stopped  using flock. Our mayor describes this issue as

10:30overblown, but this is an issue of the rights and  safety of our neighbors. This is an issue of the

10:38kind of community Quinsey wants to be. This is an  issue that I think the mayor would prefer just go

10:45away. It's not going to go away, Mayor Ko, until  the flock cameras do. Thank you for your time.

11:00Very good. John Fitz Maurice. John Fitz  Morris, 9 Kelvin Road in Quinsey. um as

11:06the senior director of an information technology  uh department at a biotech company for 25 years.

11:12I led campus surveillance uh systems, building  access, network security, database management,

11:19and computer systems validation. I also managed  the campus security staff. I retired three years

11:24ago. I'm here to speak about my experience with  surveillance systems and what I have learned

11:29about the flocked ALPR network. I designed and  managed four closed video surveillance systems

11:36with more than 50 cameras on two campuses.  This is comparable to the size of Quinsey

11:42Police Department's current Flock surveillance  network. There are however significant differences

11:48between my company's surveillance systems and  Flocked ALPR system. The systems I designed and

11:54managed were truly closed. All of the company's  cameras were wired back to our data centers.

12:01None of the cameras were wireless. They were  on a separate network, not connected to any

12:07other internal networks at our business and not  certainly not connected to the internet. No one

12:14except a small group of IT staff had access to  stored surveillance data. systems management and

12:21operations were managed by standard operating  procedures that I wrote and validated. Flock

12:28ALPR's network is not truly closed. Despite what  we hear, the ALPRs are wireless and many of them

12:36are vulnerable to a hack. They are connected  to the Flock Cloud via a cell phone network.

12:42All ALPR data is sent back to the Flock Cloud  and stored on Amazon Web Services network. So,

12:50what is the cloud? Simply put, it's someone else's  computer. That's what I tell everybody. It's just

12:56someone else's computer system. Companies and  agencies like Quinsey Police Department rent space

13:02on their and use their software and computing  power on flocks and Amazon's remote computers

13:09on the internet. The cloud is like a hotel. The  guests are given a room to use the amenities.

13:16In this case, the amenities are software and keep  their personal belongings data in that room. We're

13:23all aware that when we when we exit a hotel room,  the room is not secure from hotel management,

13:30maintenance, and housekeeping access. You have to  trust the hotel staff to not mismanage, misuse,

13:38disturb, or share your personal belongings.  Likewise, you must trust that Flock and Amazon

13:44Web Services will not mismanage, misuse, disturb,  or share your data. Flock has broken that trust

13:52in the past. The Boston Police Department  discovered that despite Flock's assurances

13:57that data from its pilot program would not be  shared with any other client, Flock shared them

14:03with every other client. Thank you. I'm sorry.  Your three minutes is up. Okay. Thank you.

14:14We have um Mark Ko is next followed by Bill  Zamzau and then Tyler Anderson just to keep

14:20things moving. Mr. Ko, thank you. My name is Mark  Ko, 42 years old. I live at 115 Colby Road. My

14:28dad was a city councelor in the 80s. He's now  a retired chief of police on Cape Cod where he

14:34was a police officer for over 30 years. I'm the  only lawyer in my family. So, this is obviously

14:40a discussion where we're speaking and we're going  to get questions later and I feel like I have a

14:46lot to say. What is overblown is the amount of  flock cameras we have in this city. These are

14:52not license plate readers. They collect data. What  they are is constant warrantless surveillance of

15:00citizens. We are in a city where police officers  don't have bodywn cameras. Why? We're in a city

15:08where we have cameras pointed at civilians  instead. Why? We We're in a city where there's

15:1450 some odd flock cameras and today is the first  time. Thank you to the city council for making

15:21an event like this happen where we can speak and  where we can say why did all these cameras go up

15:26with seemingly no oversight? Who decided that for  us? Is it the police's decision to police us? And

15:34who is policing them? Now, I can say I'm biased  because I'm a criminal defense attorney. I do

15:39court-appointed work in juvenile court, so I don't  think it's all that dramatic, but at the same

15:44time, this is um and as far as lawyers go, this  is not legal advice for the record. There's a 2020

15:52case, Commonwealth v. McCarthy. It's 48 Mass 493  if anybody wants to go look it up. And what our

15:58highest court said is that there were four cameras  that were used to track this alleged criminal. he

16:05was convicted. He appealed it and they said,  "No, we're going to uphold this." However,

16:10if the surveillance was more was uh I forget  the exact terminology and I apologize, but

16:17essentially we're beyond that in Quinsey. So, when  the police tell you tonight that they need flock

16:23cameras to catch criminals, play that forward.  What happens when that case goes to court? What

16:30happens when it's a very, very serious case? If  they actually did need the flock cameras, then

16:36what's going to happen is very well it could just  be dismissed. Not because the person's innocent,

16:42not because the victim did anything wrong,  but because we have too many cameras and that

16:47means the case is going to go away. I don't know  who the attorney is for the police department,

16:51and I know who the attorney is for the city,  but I think that's very important. And if they

16:55don't need flock cameras, or in those cases, the  alternative is you argue inevitable discovery.

17:02We would have found that out anyways, so that case  doesn't go away. The police would have found it

17:08out anyways, so the case isn't dismissed. Follow  that through. If it's inevitable discovery, that

17:14means the Quinsey police can do their job without  flock cameras. And by using 50 flock cameras or 40

17:20or 30 or 20, it's going to lead to a case being  dismissed. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.

17:34Bill Zamzau, Jared uh Kazat, you could come up  and stand to to move the line. Good evening. Bill

17:40Zamzau, 46 Tilded Circle, Quinsey councilors,  as well as all others taking in this hearing.

17:46Please take note of the following. Quinsey Police  Chief Kennedy deserves some to considerable slack.

17:52Flock was rolled out in Quinsey by his  predecessor and who is one of the mayor's

17:56brothers-in-law as well as surely with the mayor's  blessing, but apparently without the council's

18:01direct and formal approval and most definitely  without not without any public input. As such,

18:09unless some years ago, now Chief Kennedy was part  of bringing Quinsey to Flock via an ad hoc or some

18:15other sort of committee, he has been tapped  to take hits as a designated flag catcher for

18:20the Koch administration. Moving along, media  reports have it that dozens of Massachusetts

18:25communities have cut their ties with Flock, with  most terminations apparently for cause on top of

18:31push back by outraged locals. Conversely, reports  of contracts terminated with Flock's competitors

18:37are few and far between, as far as I can tell. As  such, what does the administration have in the way

18:43of justification to keep Flock? For example, as  for performance and use metrics justifications,

18:50I saw a chart that listed a solid six-figure  monthly tapping of flock camera data by

18:55in total by outsiders. Five figure taps by  instate agencies, much less by local police,

19:01and even fewer inquiry citing case number  a case number with even fewer yet noted is

19:07tied to successfully closed cases. Granted,  this big number to small numbers winnowing

19:15might be justified somehow or other. However,  at first blush, I have my doubts. In short,

19:20while flock offers benefits, they are limited as  well as mostly to provide after the-act support

19:25as opposed to more consequential crime fighting.  In turn, it's thus only affair to address what

19:31is the cost to personal privacy as well as  the financial cost to pay for flock. Oh,

19:36and speaking of financial costs, there are clear  indications that some of the funds expended to

19:40bring Flock to Clinty were improperly tapped  funds. Simply put, what the flock? In closing,

19:49I thus look forward to seeing the council follow  the money. Thank you for your consideration.

20:01Tyler and Elizabeth Dietrich, you're on deck.  Tyler Anderson. I'm from Ward 4 Rudi Drive.

20:08Um I'm here speaking in my capacity as a private  citizen of Quinsey. Um I am a policy analyst for

20:15Stop Killing Games and Stop Killing the Internet.  So you're probably aware of which side of this

20:21issue I'm on. I was at the last meeting and  I thought a lot about what I wanted to say.

20:30For the sake of everybody's sanity, I'm going to  be as succinct as I possibly can. I'm going to

20:35speak about one man and two documents. The  man is John Adams, and given where we are,

20:41I should hope you know who that is. Um, he's  buried about 200 feet behind me. And the two

20:47documents I want to talk about are both spawned  from his brain. So, John Adams felt very strongly

20:56about unreasonable surgeon seizure. He wrote  specifically that the child independence was born

21:04during James Otis' arguments against unreasonable  search and seizure in the then British courts.

21:12He never really stopped having those  feelings because he wrote few years later

21:17after we won the revolution uh article  14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of

21:22Rights which specifically bans unreasonable  search and seizure of houses, possessions,

21:29and persons. And then little little bit later we  have the fourth amendment of the United States

21:35Constitution which draws directly from article 14  of the Massachusetts State Declaration of Rights.

21:43He was very proud of these documents and we are  very proud of John Adams which you might know by

21:50the fact that his name is plastered over literally  everything in this city. But if I go a block that

21:59way to Adam's Academy, there are seven cameras  pointed at that thing. If I go 30 steps that way,

22:13we have two of these flock cameras pointed at  his grave. I don't think we need to talk a lot

22:22about the details. I could talk about how I think  Chief Kennedy's a professional. I don't think he

22:28wants to give up a tool he finds useful, but  there is no deal to be made with these people.

22:35They have violated every agreement they've  had. They go into cities that have canceled

22:41their contracts and they put up new ones. They  collect more data than they say they do. This is

22:47not complicated. This is mass surveillance.  There will never be, God willing, a clearer

22:55example of this in our entire lifetime. We love  John Adams. So, let's stop pissing on his grave.

23:17Jeremiah Monk is on deck. And um Jared, you're  up. Thank you. Uh my name is Jared. I live in

23:25Ward 3 on Hullbrook Road next to the school. Um  this is my first city council meeting. Thank you

23:31for giving me the opportunity to speak. Um I've  lived in Quinsey, please. Sorry. I've lived in

23:39Quinsey for uh nine years now and I've been  a truck driver for all that time. Um, and um,

23:46I didn't prepare anything, so I'm going to stutter  a little bit, but um, I wanted to talk about um, a

23:53little personal experience I've had with a similar  technology. Um, I'm sure everyone has heard about

23:59how, oh, self-driving trucks are around the  corner. Well, the AI has definitely come to the

24:03trucking industry. Um, but not in that form. Uh,  it's cameras that watch the driver. Um, and um,

24:14I've worked for several companies now with these  cameras that are AI enabled and they send video

24:21clips to my boss of when my eyes stray from the  road for a few seconds or when I take a hand off

24:26the steering wheel. And um I'm sure these little  videos uh make my boss's safety officer make his

24:37job very easy, but um they uh also just enable  abuse and um they give uh bad people a lot of

24:51power. And um I think a lot of people tonight um  I I don't want you to get confused and think that

25:01everyone here talking against flock necessarily  thinks the police are bad people. That's not the

25:06case. Um, but um I want everyone to imagine just  like the founders did, just like John Adams did,

25:15uh, a hypothetical future where the person  in charge, the person reviewing the footage

25:22isn't an upstanding gentleman, uh, like we  have today. Um, and uh, I want to personally

25:32um, express support for a bill that would limit  the expansion of um, this technology, license

25:41plate readers in general, not just flock, but all  this technology in general. Thank you. Thank you,

25:53Francis Thompson. You can You're on deck, Francis  Thompson. Hi, my name is Elizabeth Dietrich. I'm

25:59at 95 West West's Quantum Street. Um, I'm here  today to uh object to the use of flock cameras

26:04in Quinsey like so many. Um, the last time we were  gathered here to discuss flock cameras, um, Chief

26:11Kennedy called flock another tool in the toolbox  of Quincy PD. and say you would feel terrible

26:16regret if foregoing the use of flock cameras meant  that a crime wasn't solved or there was a delay in

26:25bringing justice to uh to the victims. Um I can  understand that. I completely can put myself in

26:31his shoes there. Um but today I'd like to pose the  flip side of that hypothetical. What happens if

26:38Quinsey's flock cameras, which have such um such  reach and are able to capture so much of our city,

26:46um what happens if those cameras get hacked  and used to commit a crime rather than to

26:51solve one? Not just the federal agency queries,  I'm not talking about that. Or even queries by

26:57someone in Flunk, actual hackers. We know that  these that these cameras are not secure. Cyber

27:03security experts have raised red flags about this  for months. Um, and uh, over and over it's been

27:10proven that Flock itself does not really care  about the security of the data that is coming

27:16out of their cameras. Criminals could use Flock  data to stalk Quinsey citizens to monitor them as

27:23they're coming and going from their homes, maybe  even to blackmail them. What kind of regrets would

27:29we have as a community if a tool that Quincy PD  intends to use for good is instead used for evil?

27:37These are all just hypotheticals for now. Let's  please not wait to see if they become reality

27:43and keep Quincy fle free of flock and other  license plate raiders. Thank you. Thank you.

27:56Sir, Ellen Nelson, you're on deck.  You want to get in line? Hi. Um,

28:02I'm Jeremiah Monk. I also live at 95 West Guanum  Street. Uh, I work in building operations. So,

28:09in in the world we live in in 2026,  um, cyber security slows down hacks

28:15and breaches, but it never works forever.  Everything gets leaked eventually, right?

28:20Um, a company with a network the size of flock  that interfaces with so many police departments

28:26across the country is never going to be able to  secure all its cameras forever. They have been

28:31hacked before. They will be hacked again. So, we  aren't just building criminals that provide or

28:36we aren't just building cameras that provide law  enforcement with the ability to monitor us. We're

28:42providing criminals the ability to monitor us,  right? Um, we are also providing that ability to

28:50any foreign country that wishes to. Any national  intelligence service could hack these cameras. And

28:56I have nothing but goodwill for every country in  the world, but I can think of maybe a couple that

29:01I wouldn't want monitoring me whenever I'm in  public, right? Um, non-state actors could hack

29:09these cameras. You know, we we live in a world  where today hacked cameras are used to target

29:14drone strikes in conflict zones. Um, I hate to  be the guy who who brings this up, but yeah,

29:20a terrorist on the other side of the planet could  use these cameras to kill someone here. Uh, now,

29:27pray to God that never happens, right? That that  Quinsey never attracts that kind of attention. But

29:32why should we pay to build this weapon against  ourselves? This is something we would should be

29:38willing to pay to to not have pointed at us,  right? Uh now I think it's been pretty clear

29:44that basically everyone who lives in Quinsey  is opposed to these flock cameras except for

29:49the police department. And I respect that on,  you know, on public safety. It's the opinion

29:56of the police department is valuable, should  be listened to. But I would I would also ask,

30:01you know, I'm very lucky that my job is is not  as dangerous as working in law enforcement. What

30:08happens when a criminal with a grudge uses a flot  camera to track an officer or their loved ones?

30:14Does that make us safer or more dangerous? If we  really need more tools, let's use this money and

30:20hire another detective, right? I think that would  be safer for everyone who lives here. Thank you.

30:33Elizabeth Dreer, you're on deck. Francis  Thompson, 53 Westm. As many people have

30:40spoken eloquently against the about  the risks of flock camera misusage,

30:43I will try to stick to the following topics.  Motivation, effectiveness, and externalities.

30:48What kind of city do we want to be? Do we want to  create a city where its citizens feel surveiled,

30:53monitored, stalked, databased? Or do we want  to build a city where it civilians where it

30:58citizens feel no fear of panoptic control  and are able to express themselves freely

31:02and openly? What we invest in matters and  it will matter for a long time. Currently

31:06we are choosing to invest in a lonely cold  mechanized ple police state of a future. In

31:12today's atomized world we should be encouraging  freedom of expression, freedom to assemble,

31:16freedom to be. Mass surveillance systems inhibit  these freedoms. A recent study by Ro O Oxford

31:21University scholar John Penny found that when in  2013 when US citizens became aware of the online

31:26surveillance perpetuated by perpetrated by the NSA  a decrease of at least 15% was observed in online

31:32searches for potentially embarrassing queries. The  research term for these decreases in activity due

31:36to surveillance is some is called chilling and it  is clear that the real world real world effects

31:41of flock surveillance holds the risk of even  even greater chilling in real life. Simply put,

31:46people feel less comfortable practicing  their constitutionally given freedoms if

31:49they are being watched. This has been observed  empirically. Another underdised aspect of this

31:55is effectiveness. What safety are we supposedly  gaining by foregoing our constitutional freedoms?

32:00Is increasingly clear the answer is not much.  London is considered by most scholars to be

32:04the most surveiled city in the entire world  with over 10 cameras per person. In Quinsey,

32:08that would be a rate that rate would be  an amount of 10,000 plus flock cameras.

32:12Even with that wide of a net, violent crime in  London is about 21 cases per capita compared to

32:163.3 cases per capita in Quinsey, a seven time  increase. Seven time increase. Uh meanwhile,

32:21Boston has zero flock cameras following a security  breach affformentioned. Quinsey is significantly

32:25safer than Boston on violent crime level, which  is significantly safer than the national average.

32:29Why should we give up our civil liberties uh  for safety concerns that are largely unfounded?

32:34Lastly, I'd like to discuss what externalities I  think are underappreciated and under discussed.

32:37Flock is an AI company. While AI has attracted a  lot of oo's and o's and as well as trillions of

32:42dollars in capital expenditure, AI's number one  product is carbon dioxide. It is in arguably the

32:47most pollutant technology in human history.  The data flock unconstitutionally collects

32:53on US citizens is housed by Amazon Web Services  which is currently in court over a data center in

32:57Texas which is set to produce 33 33 million  tons of carbon dioxide yearly equivalent to

33:02seven large oil fields. That is one data center.  Extrapolate that over the roughly 5,000 active

33:08data centers in the United States and that  is over 178 billion tons of carbon dioxide

33:11released yearly. That's over three times  the amount of carbon dioxide released in

33:15Exxon Mobile's entirety. For Quinsey to in one  breath sing its own praises for its so-called

33:20commitment to climate protection and another  breath employ a tool with calamitous effects on

33:24said environment is shows gross hypocrisy.  The matter is not about trust in Quinsey

33:28police. I think Quincy police's attitude on the  matter reflects a dangerous arrogance which has

33:31been proven to be misplaced. The city of Boston  could not prevent data breaches. Amazon the fifth

33:35largest company in the world with a market cap  equivalent to the size of France could not prevent

33:38data breaches. Flock itself could not. What  makes Quinsey police so sure they can prevent?

33:52Hi. Uh thank you city council for holding this  hearing. I'm Elen Nelson. I live at 28 Village

33:59Drive. Um, I also would like to express my serious  concern regarding the flock safety cameras. These

34:06cameras passively record and track the movement  of every vehicle and person that passes. Not just

34:12vehicles tied to active criminal investigations,  but everyday people going about their private

34:17lives. This is mass surveillance. Um, and I  was very disturbed to learn that flock safety

34:24employees have watched kids gymnastics rooms to  pitch surveillance tech. And again, that's not the

34:32Quincsey Police Department. Those are corporate  executives. So imagine corporate employees you've

34:37never met watching live feeds of your child's  gymnastics class, not for security, but to

34:43impress potential customers. And that's exactly  what happened in Dunwoody, Georgia, where flock

34:49safety workers access cameras in children's spaces  at the Marcus Jewish Community Center as part of

34:56sales demonstrations. I have a 2-year-old daughter  and I want her to live in a city where her privacy

35:02is protected. Many towns in Massachusetts have  already ended their contracts with flock. I ask

35:08our Quinsey city government to do the same. I urge  the Quinsey City Council and Mayor Ko to cancel

35:15any and all current and future ALPR contracts  with Fox Safety, any other companies, remove the

35:22current surveillance camper cameras, and protect  the privacy of us Quinsey residents. Thank you.

35:36So, Elizabeth is going to speak next, but we can  have Diego and Carrie Sheen on deck for the next

35:42speakers. Thank you. Thank you, Elizabeth Dreer,  623 Quinsey Shore Drive, W 6. Thank you to the

35:49council for having this public hearing regarding  Quinsey's use of flock safety technology.

35:55I'm here tonight out of a duty to my neighbors  and a sense of deep concern and growing unease

36:01I have when I see how this country and our  city have changed. Technology is evolving

36:08faster than it can be governed. And as a  result, we do not have adequate means of

36:13controlling the tools of technology that  are now being used by law enforcement.

36:18Not only were Quinsey residents not given a say  prior to the installation of flock cameras across

36:24the city, but they are paying for the privilege  even as the city's debt continues to grow. I'd

36:30like to understand what about Quinsey requires  that we have the highest number of flock cameras

36:35in the state while other cities and towns continue  to cancel their flock contracts from Massachusetts

36:41to Florida. I'm certain that contracts with  Flock were signed with the best of intentions.

36:47After all, the appeal is baked into the brand  Flock Safety. It's meant to coax us into giving

36:53up our privacy in exchange for a vague notion of  being safer. This tool and those similar to it

37:00are powerful. They are ripe for abuse as hundreds  of cases of misuse and abuse continue to surface.

37:07And these are only the cases we know about  for individuals who were authorized to use

37:11the block system, let alone the instances we  don't know about or any unauthorized access,

37:18which is very easily obtained from online  tutorials. The success stories in Quinsey that

37:24Flock Safety themselves describes have nothing to  do with our safety and focus instead on recovering

37:31stolen property and vandalism after the fact.  One aspect of a Flock success story did catch

37:38my attention solely because Flock highlighted how  well it is able to track someone's movements. I do

37:46not want to live in a city where my community  members movements are so easily tracked. What

37:52medical care we seek, where we gather, who  we are connected to, our movements should

37:59not be captured by a profit-driven technology  company and sold back to our city as safety. I

38:06urge Quinsey to cancel its contract with Flock  effective immediately. Thank you, councilors.

38:15Sue Dherty, you're on deck, followed by Heather  Dhoni. Is Diego here? Diego. And then after Diego

38:24is Carrie, then Susan Doherty, and then Heather  Dhoni. All right. Hey folks, good evening. Good

38:30evening. Um, I didn't really prepare a speech. I  kind of just threw one together. Um, I'm going to

38:34keep this pretty short. This is my work laptop.  Part of my job is to prepare and deploy these

38:42machines to our users. Now, when we deploy them,  we tell them, hey, you can install things that

38:47are approved and you can change settings how you'd  like. you can do things to make your job easier.

38:52What we don't tell them is that at any moment  it can access your computer, undo those changes,

38:56and bypass them like this. This isn't just true  for us. This is true for every IT department

39:02in the country. It'd be I'd be really surprised  if the machines that the council are sitting in

39:06front of can't have the same things done to them.  This is industry standard practice. And it's also

39:13true for Flock. I want to talk about BPD. BPD  wrote a contract where they had restrictions in

39:21place to who can look at the cameras. They had  clauses to ensure the data from Boston stays in

39:26Boston. They had clauses to ensure that, you  know, everything they did was done correctly.

39:33It took three days for Flock to just flick a  switch and undo all of their access controls.

39:40In the same way that big tech loves to come in  and flip those settings that you've set on your,

39:45you know, on your social media on whatever and  just turn them off because they felt like it,

39:50Flock can do the same. And it's not just Flock.  It's any company that builds these cameras. This

39:56isn't a oh, they might. It's a they've shown  they'll do it and they've shown they'll justify

40:01it. QPD has some plans in place to set up, you  know, restrictions and stuff and build a really

40:08strong door. The thing is though, we can put  as many locks on the door as we want. We can

40:13restrict who can access this door as much as we  want. We can build a fortress, but we don't own

40:19the building. Flock does. Flock can issue keys  to whoever they want. They've shown they'll give

40:25themselves keys to access our cameras. They'll  show they've quite frankly done whatever they

40:31can. If we write a clause that say you can't go  through this door, they will build a new door.

40:38This isn't just Flock. Every company like this  can and will do the same. I just don't I don't

40:44just think we should cut our contract with  Flock. We should outright ban this technology

40:48from Quincy as a whole because let's say we get  rid of it through QPD. They can work with any

40:54private business to mount their camera software  on any camera system in the city and right back

40:59to square one. This just shouldn't exist. It  goes counter to the very founding ideas of this

41:05country and sometimes a tool just isn't worth the  downsides. All right, folks. Have a nice night.

41:20So again, we have Carrie Sheen  next followed by Sue Doherty,

41:24Heather Dhoni, and then would be Ethan King.

41:29Hello, Carrie Sheen, 27 Piermont Street. Thank  you to the council for having this hearing. Um,

41:36I don't want to be redundant up here. All the  points seem pretty valid. I do have children like

41:42probably a lot of you in this room. Uh, they like  to ride their bikes on the same streets usually

41:47around the same time every day. So now I feel like  I have this extra worry about who is watching them

41:54um with these cameras and whatnot. And the push  back is always well if you're not breaking the

42:01law you shouldn't be worried. But I am worried I'm  very worried um that my children's movements can

42:07be documented and then a pattern can be made  and somebody somewhere has access to it. Not

42:14just here in Quinzy anywhere. And um just to  have tech tied so closely with our government

42:21is really only good for the tech company's  bottom line in my opinion and it's not for

42:26the residents no matter what we've been told.  So that's just short and sweet and thank you.

42:38Thank you. Um the next person on deck will be  Zachary Christopher. You're up. Hi. Uh, my name

42:47is Sudard. I live at 922 C Street. Um, so Flock,  I'm against Flock. Flock and other ALPR is a part

42:53of the technofascist regime that is being built  by tech billionaires and right-wing politicians

42:58to control all the peasants. That's us, who they  see as disposable workers and consumers. What is

43:04technofascism? Who and what is driving it? For  a partial answer to this question, I'm reading

43:08with some light editing from the beginning of a  post about technofascism and LA L. James Johnson

43:13Substack, the Jesus principle. What technofascism  means. Writers and researchers use technofascism

43:19for a specific pattern. Ultra-che tech figures  backing authoritarian politics while building

43:24the tools to enforce them. Key features keep  showing up. Contempt for democracy as inefficient

43:29or broken. A preference for rule by elites or  founders over voters. Investment in surveillance,

43:34policing, and military tech to manage the  population. Culture war politics that target

43:39minorities and denters as threats. This is all  part of an anti-democratic project. Peter Teal is

43:44the clearest example. Teal co-founded Palanteer,  the data mining firm that sells tools to the

43:49Pentagon, ICE, and law enforcement agencies.  In a 2009 essay, he wrote, "I no longer believe

43:55that freedom and democracy are compatible, and  argued that real freedom lies in new technological

44:00frontiers outside democratic control." His venture  funds have backed companies like Clear View, AI,

44:06and Flock, key players in facial recognition  and mass surveillance infrastructure. This isn't

44:12accidental. Teal's own writing leans on ideas that  say, "Democracy is decadent and exhausted. Elites

44:19must preserve noble lies to justify their rule. A  a tightly controlled order is preferable to messy

44:26pluralism." In other words, the people can't be  trusted. The right kind of rulers should quietly

44:31run things. The right kind of rulers building  the machinery of control. Palanteer software

44:37ingests huge amounts of personal data and helps  government agencies track, map, and target

44:41individuals and communities. Surveillance firms  like Flock sell tools that let police and private

44:47clients follow people's movements and identify  them on site. Venture money flows into drones,

44:53predictive policing, AIdriven monitoring, and  smart city platforms that can easily be repurposed

44:59for repression. Researchers describe this as  building the authoritarian stack. Cloud service,

45:05AI, senses, finance, satellites, an entire  control system owned by private corporations

45:11moving faster than any public oversight. You  don't need a dictator in a uniform when you

45:16can get the same result from a a network of  companies that see everything and answer to

45:20no one. That's the end of the part that I'm  reading. I just want to say get flock and

45:24all APRs out of Quinsey and this whole system  really needs to be taken down and resisted. Um

45:33the drones can target children in Gaza. They can  target children in Quinzy. I mean this it's not

45:39it's not I've read a lot of dystopian fiction.  We should not be feeding this anti-democratic

45:44authoritarian technist machine with our tax  dollars, our data, and our people. Thank you.

45:58Heather, I'm just going to ask you to wait one  minute. We just need to We're going to uh take

46:01a brief recess from the public hearing to open  the oversight committee and then go back in to

46:07uh the public hearing. So, stop the want to  call to order the uh October 6th oversight

46:14committee hearing. Um I'm going to read the  open meeting law. the open meeting law. Uh,

46:19pursuant to the open meeting law, any person  may make an audio or video recording of this

46:24public meeting or may transmit the  meeting through any medium. Attendees

46:28are therefore advised that such recordings  or transmissions are are being made whether

46:33perceived or unpersceived by those present and  are deemed acknowledgeable and permissible. And

46:40we're going to call the role. Would you call  the role now? Council Ash, council present.

46:55Thank you. And at this time, we're going to  recess the oversight committee hearing and go

46:59back to the public meeting and we're  going to pick up with Heather Dhoni.

47:07Hi, my name is Heather Dhoni and I live at 912  Southern Arty. I want to talk about Flock as well

47:12as Bus Patrol, another mass surveillance tool we  have here contracting with a competitor of Flock

47:17called Axon. On a personal note, I was pulled over  by a state trooper using an ALPR system that got

47:24got that got connected with the Massachusetts RMV  database. It had a registration error on a car my

47:30husband and I had just bought. The trooper thought  he'd he'd caught an undocumented immigrant. That's

47:35the only reason we got pulled over. Thankfully,  we had all the right papers in the car, but it

47:40was a dystopian encounter I haven't forgotten  and probably never will. I get that for a lot

47:45of people here in Quinsey, trust is built on  long-term, often lifelong relationships. So,

47:50if the police chief feels safe with this, they  will feel safe. But police departments aren't it

47:56don't get trained on databases and data sets like  researchers. And I believe that that can lead to

48:00some gaps in understanding and planning. And I  mean to be respectful about that. I believe the

48:06police chief is feeling safe with something  that is not actually safe for us and if he

48:10understood all these details, he would hurry  to make another choice. We've been reassured

48:15these cameras will help if there's an awful crime  like a kidnapping or an assault. Unfortunately,

48:19the research just doesn't bear out the cameras  doing that. Whether it's right to be monitoring

48:24all all law-abiding abiding citizens to catch  a few bad actors is also a value judgment and

48:30a lot of people including me feel very strongly  about that. Over 30 of the 80 communities in

48:35Massachusetts with flock have recognized this as a  public policy, ethics, and jurisdictional problem

48:41and decided to cancel their contracts. Just last  week, a federal judge in Florida also ruled that

48:47these mass surveillance searches violate the  Fourth Amendment. This is a big conversation

48:51all across the country. Meanwhile, Quinsey is  getting negative press for having more flock

48:56cameras than any other city in the state. I've had  friends from other cities texting me and asking me

49:01if it's true. That's how I learned it was true.  It might be easy to conclude that you can safely

49:07keep these systems in our city if we clamp down  on known misbehavior or limit access um limit

49:12the number of users, the searches to suspected  suspected crimes, have audits and so on. But

49:18Flock is still publicly marketing this as daisy  chain between cities all across this country,

49:23connecting it to every database and AI system they  can find. So who are they not being truthful with?

49:29You, me, are the people who have never set foot  in Quinsey but want to conduct mass surveillance

49:35on port cities, on coastal areas and people that  they have never met, including you, including me,

49:41including all of us who not while we stay none  the wiser because my experience shows it happens

49:46quietly at night on a road with a state trooper  with a database that's that's that's attached.

49:52That's how it's done. The problem is still  mass surveillance. No matter how much they

49:57say it's a closed system, it's about as open as a  hospital gown. Like the back of a hospital gown,

50:02that's just the way that it's built. So, I  respectfully request that it's part of the city's

50:07next steps you put a trash bag on it and take  them off our school buses. Thank you very much,

50:20my fellow counselors. It's been 45 minutes of  this public hearing. We have nine more to go.

50:26I'm looking for a consensus vote on whether or not  we'd like to just continue with the nine people.

50:31Any all in favor say I. Any opposed? The eyes  have it, so we'll continue. Thank you. Awesome.

50:39Uh thank you for your time. I'm Ethan, 95 West  Quantum Street. Um so I'll keep my statement brief

50:45uh because there's been so many amazing  speakers behind me who have said, you know,

50:49such a depth of knowledge coming from different uh  different backgrounds. Um, and I think, you know,

50:55this conversation that we're having is one  that everyone in the nation is having to

51:00ask themselves. Every every state, every city,  every town, every person. And that question is,

51:07do we sit back and let fascism take over or do  we fight back and stand for democracy? These

51:14cameras have been shown time and time again that  they that the they are used by law enforcement.

51:20They're used by the Trump administration to track  our neighbors, to detain our our fellow residents,

51:27and to attack protesters, right? To make monitor  uh people expressing uh their freedom of speech.

51:36The CEO of Flock has gone on record saying that  those who speak up against these cameras are

51:43terrorists. And so, if we continue to work with  this company, I have to ask, am I a terrorist? Are

51:49the people behind me terrorists? I I certainly  hope I certainly hope not. I don't think so. I

51:54think they're all lovely people so far. Um but  you know, the the fact that we continue to work

52:02with this company that has shown that it has zero  regard for our freedoms, our amendments, democracy

52:09itself begs the question, where where does the  city of Quincy stand? Because clearly us residents

52:16have made our answer where we stand on fascism.  And so now the question is where does city council

52:22stand? Where does Quincy PD stand? And where  does the mayor stand? I hope that the city

52:27council will ban ALPRs from the city of Quincy  and at least until a decision is made that we

52:33bag the cameras or something to decommission them  while we discuss further. Thank you. Thank you.

52:44Zachary Christopher is going to be next. On deck  are Brandon Lamb and Mia Caliggera. Uh hi Zachary

52:53Christopher 67 Montlair A uh apartment 2. Um but  for those in the audience on the council and hi

53:02everybody at home. I'm Bucket Bucket the clown.  Um, I of course am against flock and I'm sure

53:13everybody's heard the words mass surveillance  so many times that their ears are starting to

53:21bleed. But I would like to bring a vision of the  future because this is bigger than just flock. Um,

53:32for those unaware, the Department of  Homeland Security has a program on

53:36the southern border that are called integrated  tower surveillance. Uh, and newly what they're

53:46calling automated tower surveillance,  which are giant monolithic towers with,

53:53uh, optical cameras, thermal cameras,  laser, audio recording, uh, and radio waves,

54:01the whole shebang, looking down on small  border cities to police the undesirabs.

54:11and with a new document from the US government  accountability office called GAO26108118

54:23DHS annual assessment. Uh this is a direct  quote. They are bringing uh the total number

54:32up to 2,300 towers, adding approximately 2,000  towers, 1,500 of which will be arranged along

54:43the northern border and all waterways and coastal  uh port cities. The future that these people want

54:57is every street watched by ring cameras in  neighborhoods and flock cameras on the main

55:06arteries, cameras in our trucks, cameras in our  cars, cameras in our homes. And we all know,

55:13we all know the phones are listening and  it's all connected to the same robot brain.

55:23This is terrorism designed to psychologically  torture all of the people. This is not okay.

55:39But while we're at it, let's put automated cream  pie launchers on all of the systems. If a car is

55:49suspected of being involved in a crime, shoot  a pie at it. Then we'll know where it is. Okay.

56:04Brandon's going to be next, followed by Mia  and Jacobs on deck after that. Brandon Lamb,

56:1082 Martinsson Street, War 2. Uh, I don't know  if I can beat that, so I'll be kind of short. Um

56:16uh all of my fellow residents have said  a lot of the points I've wanted to say.

56:20There's just maybe one more I might add is uh  threats of cyber security have been mentioned

56:26multiple times by multiple people. Uh the  time we're in right now is probably where

56:32cyber security is the greatest risk in human  history. We have unregulated AI development

56:38that can very easily overcome potentially any  cyber security apparatus that we have today.

56:44So even if you know Flock or any other ALPR  company says like oh we have secure systems

56:50even if Amazon web services says we have secure  systems um unregulated AI could easily overcome

56:58any cyber security apparatus that we have and that  means that right now we're setting up all these

57:04cameras and collecting all this data and have no  idea if you know technology that's developed in a

57:10year or in a month or in a week or tomorrow uh can  easily overcome and access all of that data. Um,

57:16so even with even putting aside Flock or Amazon  or any any other company intentionally using

57:22our data the wrong way, there's unintentional  use as a major risk in the future, too. Uh,

57:28so I think it's unwise that we set up something  where we're collecting all this data that we right

57:34now know that we can't manage in the future.  Um, and I mean, the last thing I'll say is I

57:40think I would love for Quinsey to have a lot of  superlatives in Massachusetts. I would love for

57:44it to be the best place to live. I would love for  it to have the best schools in Massachusetts. Um

57:50I I I don't want it to top Massachusetts in terms  of number of flock cameras. Thank you. Thank you.

57:59So next we have Mia followed by Jacob and then  Brendan. Sorry I can't read this. Is it Marac

58:05is on tap after that? So again um Mia then Jacob.  Is Mia here? Mia and then Jacob and then Brendan.

58:17Hi, my name is Mia and uh I have a  lot of concerns about these cameras.

58:21Um I don't think that we can simply call this uh  surveillance. Um you know, when you're in a store

58:29uh maybe at least a few years ago and you  see a camera there, um you'd think, okay,

58:34that's normal because I know it's there to  prevent theft. This isn't simply that. Um,

58:40there's a reason that this feels creepy. I want to  name it. It's stalking. It's mass indiscriminate

58:46stalking. Okay. And Flock is assisting that.  Now, a lot of people have mentioned, you know,

58:54um, Peter Teal. I'd like to mention that the  people who run this country have been found

58:59in the Epstein files. Same thing with Peter  Teal. And these people are the same people

59:05who are propping up mass surveillance  companies, mass stocking companies,

59:10and then putting them on children's school buses.  School buses that do not have the security.

59:19In short, I'd like to say that this is a  crime even if it's not yet illegal. Thank you.

59:34If you could just also uh Jacob if you  could just say your address because

59:37you didn't write it here. So like  maybe Jake Lavine 140 Quinc CF the

59:43uh fears about flock have been well established  here. So I'd like to focus a little bit on the

59:48pro flock argument or my understanding of it  my understanding of how the network works as

59:54currently described is it's meant as a  detective tool. in the QPD detectives

59:58seem to be the main ones who have access so I  feel like the metric there should be its use

1:00:04in crimes cleared prosecutions brought things  like that and there to my knowledge I believe

1:00:10I've seen one case where flock was actually  used successfully in a prosecution of any

1:00:15crime nationwide meanwhile we have seen even  recently a court federal court in uh Oklahoma

1:00:25reject it as warrantless surve surveillance  and similar technologies for examplely

1:00:34rejected as violations in both the state and  the federal level. Now license plates are well

1:00:43established, cameras are well established as  ter as tools for prosecuting crimes, but we

1:00:49have simply not seen flock used successfully.  And with respect to the departments, I believe

1:00:56there is a bias towards novelty tech or maybe a  fear of FOMO that but when it comes down to it,

1:01:02we're not seeing it used where you see it used  at best as secondary to normal detective work

1:01:09with a large with a large temptation to abuse and  the creation of a culture of uh surveillance and

1:01:17distrust which I believe hurts the credibility  of the police generally and society want to live

1:01:23So with that in mind, I would like the council  to look at this technology even though it may

1:01:27seem like the future and put it more towards  the way the debate. Thank you. Thank you.

1:01:36So we have Brendan, then Ivonne, and  then E. Long. Bren, if you could just

1:01:42um give your address. Yeah, certainly. Um  39 Park Street, Ward 3. Um good evening,

1:01:51council. Uh, I'll I'll be transparent  from the get-go. My opinion, my belief,

1:01:57I think the outcome I'd like to see is  a blanket, you know, ban in the city on

1:02:03ALPR technology. I think that it it is more of  a risk than it is a reward. Um, but I think that

1:02:11um I think that there's some things to talk about  from like a if this is our partners' perspective,

1:02:18people have already hit on it briefly, but  I'd like to expand on it a little bit more.

1:02:21Um, marketing is a very big thing for these  companies. They spend a boatload of money on

1:02:27it. And when they chose the name Flock, when  they coily named every camera after a bird, it

1:02:34was intentional. It's because of the nature of the  technology. The nature of the technology is it's a

1:02:40cluster. It's it's these it's a it's a huge wall  over everything like you see flying over you when

1:02:47you see a big you know flock of pigeons anything  they sit on you know they sit on the telephone

1:02:52lines they're always there's so many of them  and to insist that it is closed to insist that

1:03:00it is restricted to the city goes against their  marketing goes against what they're putting out.

1:03:08Um, that's basically that, you know, when you buy  into this, you're buying into a network. That's

1:03:14the purpose of it. You're supposed to be able  to see where they went after they left Quinsey,

1:03:20see that they went to Milton because I know our  friends in Milton also have these cameras. I see

1:03:25them when I drive down Bee Street. It's not a fun  experience to see one of these things pop up. Um,

1:03:31and I've seen them pop up throughout the city.  I've seen them popping up more and more and I'm

1:03:38glad that it's coalesed in this kind of you know  public outcry I guess. Um but yeah, I you know

1:03:47my my belief is that a blanket ban would be the  best way to go about it because we don't have the

1:03:52legislative knowledge to deal with this at this  time and you know five years from now maybe we

1:03:59have that understanding and we can we can circle  back on this but it's just not where it needs to

1:04:05be. Um, I do agree with uh some of my previous  uh colleagues that black bagging these would be

1:04:13probably the least we could do. We've seen Waltham  do it. We've seen Framingham do it before they

1:04:17took them down. Um, I hear a lot of people saying,  "Well, oh, do we want to be Cambridge? Do we want

1:04:22to be Cambridge?" Which I'm not sure how much of  an insult it would be to call Quinsey a Cambridge,

1:04:27but I'd like to be a Framingham or a Waltham.  Those seem like lovely places to raise a family to

1:04:33to have a community. Um, so I think it would be a  show of good faith from either the council or the

1:04:40police department or in tandem to bag these and  put out a report showing that that's been done.

1:04:55So we have Ivonne and then Elong. Ivonne. Ivonne,  come on up. And then E. Long. No first name. Are

1:05:04you Avon? Ivonne. Ivonne. What's your address?  25 Newton A. 25. What? Say that again. Newton

1:05:11A. Okay. Yes. Um, good evening everyone. Good  evening, council. Um, I come here today to ask

1:05:19a bit of a rhetorical question for really everyone  in the room as well. Um, why do we have curtains

1:05:26in our home? and why do we put fences along our  property line? I bring this question up to all

1:05:34of us to reflect on what privacy means to us as  individuals. I want to reiterate a lot of the

1:05:43um points that our friends have made tonight  that we are becoming the thing that we swore

1:05:51to never become a surveillance state. And although  Flock says that the data is deleted after 7 days,

1:06:05um it has been proven by Ben Jordan, a scientist  that was able to easily hack into these cameras

1:06:14and he has seen that they do not delete the  footage at all. and that these cameras can also

1:06:23detect facial features and also document and store  and categorize um this information as well. Um,

1:06:33and you can find his findings on YouTube under  Cyber Crime Magazine where he uncovers that all

1:06:41these features that are misleading. And this  is not equivalent to traffic cameras or plate

1:06:52readers used by the parking department. Uh but  this is a very highly sophisticated tracking

1:06:58system that is storing information on our  every move and is connected to like others

1:07:05have said a cloud. And as much as we can try to  implement safeguards or quote unquote opt out

1:07:12nationwide system access at the end of the day  we don't actually own any of this information.

1:07:19um and our jurisdiction does not have ownership  and it belongs to this private entity. The

1:07:25installation of these automatic plate readers  threaten our livelihoods through the invasion

1:07:31of privacy. And even the CEO, Flock Garrett, he  uh sorry, Garrett Langley values his own privacy

1:07:41over the mass surveillance system that he has  built and sells to the public. A gentleman named

1:07:47Ty Oliviera has hired a private investigator to  follow the CEO Langley for three days and found

1:07:53that he used three separate vehicles with three  different license plates traveling different

1:07:59routes every day. So what does this say about our  privacy? To me, this shows that in this world,

1:08:06privacy is no longer a right and has  now become a luxury. Thank you everyone.

1:08:17This is the last call for Elong.  After Eong is Christina Coler,

1:08:25you just say state your first name and your  address. Long 94 Newberry. Um, I'm just going

1:08:30to A lot has been said today, so I'm just going  to say what I learned in 10 minutes smoking a

1:08:35funny cigarette outside before this meeting.  It was the McCarthy you uh Massachusetts versus

1:08:42McCarthy was about four cameras on two bridges.  How many cameras are on the deposit bridge? Um

1:08:51the federal president that was brought up earlier  was um US first Kyle and it stated that pulling

1:09:0030-day historical travel history from flock  safety databases without a warrant violates

1:09:05the fourth amendment. explicitly labeling it  indiscriminate mass surveillance. Google told

1:09:12me that uh 74,000 distinct uh vehicle captures  in Quinsey alone with only 134 quer uh queries.

1:09:24That's 99% of our law-abiding citizens information  just being held. Um the House bill in me uh in the

1:09:34Massachusetts legislator uh legislate 3 was it  3755 wants it to u the data being cut to 14 days

1:09:45as well as having a search warrant. Um on the 15th  of September Mayor Ko said that Quinsey is usually

1:09:53ahead of the curve. You guys could vote on it  tonight and be ahead of the curve. Thank you.

1:10:04and Christina Christina Keller. Hi there. Um  I'm Christina Kohler, 64 Glendale Road. Um I

1:10:13don't have anything prepared tonight. I sort of  left right before my toddler's bedtime to try

1:10:17to make it here. Remembered it right beforehand.  Um, and I'm just out here because I really want to

1:10:23represent how many um, just like normal concerned  Quinsey citizens and residents and folks who are

1:10:31trying to go about our day-to-day lives without  being mass surveiled are really deeply worried

1:10:34about this. Um, so um, folks have made some really  wonderful and wellressearched statements. Um, and

1:10:42the thing that I really want to focus on and drive  home here is how little we can trust the Flock um,

1:10:51company and any other company that is um, going to  be working with our data in this way. Um, working

1:10:57in tech myself, there are a lot of very sensitive  and careful ways to be working with data and we

1:11:02have seen over and over again through all of these  instances that folks have um, brought examples of

1:11:07that flock is just absolutely not trustworthy  with that. I don't think that any company that

1:11:12is trying to get into this in this current time  and age is going to be trustworthy. Um I will

1:11:17say I think that this would be unfolding really  differently if we were having a conversation about

1:11:22the QPD saying we have we we built a new internal  IT department that's going to be rolling out some

1:11:28closed circuit very carefully managed owned and  managed only within our own city owned department

1:11:34um fully data on the ground here. Um, I think that  that would be a really different discussion and a

1:11:39lot of the things that have been brought up so  far would still be really relevant and really

1:11:43pertinent. Um, but I do want to give appreciation  for how the QPD has been putting their own

1:11:49um as as many safeguards as they can in place. But  as other folks have said, that is doing nothing if

1:11:55the data is not owned by us. And one thing we are  seeing more and more than ever in this day and age

1:12:00is that data is the absolute most valuable thing  that you can have. Period. that is more valuable

1:12:05than all of the money in our contract 10 times  over to Flock. The amount that they are going

1:12:11to be able to get by selling that left and right  to all of these other data mining companies that

1:12:16are going to be able to be using that in all  sorts of ways we do not want is way more than

1:12:21any lawsuit that they are ever going to get pinned  down by. So all you need to know with these tech

1:12:27mega corporations is what is going to make them a  ton of money. And in that case in this situation

1:12:31we are the product for that. this like the the  contract we have with them is just the veneer and

1:12:37we cannot be selling our own citizens data in that  way. Um I would ask the um city council and the

1:12:45QPD to please um not buy into this any further.  Please end the contracts immediately. I love the

1:12:51idea of bagging the cameras. Every time I see one  of these when I'm walking down the street with

1:12:55my kid, I am like, "Okay, I am my face is being  tracked. I am being sold to who knows what." Um,

1:13:01and I would really appreciate for the sake of all  of our safety for that to be ended. Thank you.

1:13:15So, that brings us to the end of our public  hearing. Did everyone out there who got a

1:13:21chance who wanted to speak, did they get a chance  to speak? Speak now or if I will hold your peace.

1:13:28you would like. So, we're gonna So, we're gonna  You can speak, but you have to just sign in in the

1:13:34back and you'll speak after the after the public  after the guests have spoken. But, if if anyone

1:13:40in this room right now is thinking about speaking,  I'm going to I'll just recess this public hearing

1:13:46so that way after our guests speak, we can open  the public hearing back up and then that way

1:13:52uh you know, they can speak. So, at this time, I'm  going to recess the public hearing. We're going to

1:13:57go back into the oversight committee hearing  where we're going to hear from our guests. I

1:14:02also just want So, we'll do that right now. So,  I'd like to uh call back into order the October

1:14:096th oversight committee hearing. I just want to  uh point out that uh Councelor Maggie McKe as the

1:14:16W five city councelor representing Wallist,  Beachwood, uh parts hospital. Thank you. Um,

1:14:25and we Quinc Yeah, part of Quinsey Center. Yeah,  some of South Quincy. And then counselor at large,

1:14:31null deona, is also here. Earlier before you guys  got here, we kind of introduced all of ourselves.

1:14:36I just want to make sure you guys were introduced.  Great. All right. Um, so now that we're here in

1:14:41the oversight committee hearing, we're going to  start with uh our chief of police, Mark Kennedy,

1:14:46who is assisted by Captain Ward of the Quinsey  Police Department and Lieutenant Flarity of the

1:14:52Quinsey Police Department. Good evening, Chief.  Good evening, everyone. Thank you for having

1:14:58me. Um, if you'll indulge me for a minute, I just  wanted to just read an opening statement here and

1:15:07um then give you a quick demonstration of how  the the flock technology actually works. Um,

1:15:13so when I stood before this council on September  8th, I gave you my position on the Quincsey Police

1:15:18Department's use of automated license license  plate reader technology or ALPR and why I

1:15:23believe we can use this technology responsibly  while also protecting the civil liberties of

1:15:28the people we serve. I stand by everything I  said that night. There was one area, however,

1:15:33that I had hoped to get into, but simply just  didn't have the opportunity to fully explain,

1:15:37and that's the history and timeline of the Quincy  Police Department's use of ALPR technology. Based

1:15:43on some of the feedback and questions I received  after our last meeting, I believe there was some

1:15:47confusion about when we began using this  technology, how it evolved, and what steps

1:15:52we have taken to put safeguards around it. So,  with your permission, I'd just like to take a

1:15:56few minutes to walk you through that timeline. Uh  the Quinsey Police Department has been using ALPR

1:16:01technology for uh roughly 15 years. We first  deployed ALPR technology around 2011 when the

1:16:08cameras were mounted on the trunks of our Ford  Crown Victorious. Uh this was certainly not a

1:16:13secret program. Uh you really couldn't miss them.  They look like black shoe boxes mounted to the

1:16:17rear of the car. Um and at the time there were  numerous stories around the country about the

1:16:22growing use of this technology by law enforcement  agencies. and our use of it was certainly not

1:16:26intended to be hidden. In fact, we were responding  to public records requests regarding our use of

1:16:32the technology as far back as 2012. In 2020, the  department transition from the cameras mounted on

1:16:38our cruisers to fixed ALPR systems through Flock  Safety. I'll be candid with you. During that

1:16:44period, I didn't have much direct interaction with  the system. I knew our detectors were using it,

1:16:49but I had never personally used it because I  wasn't assigned to a unit that required it. That

1:16:54changed when I became chief in 2023. As chief, I  was now the one receiving the calls in the middle

1:16:59of the night about a serious crime or uh incident  throughout the city and I'd follow up with our

1:17:04detectives and I began to see firsthand how ALPR  technology was being used in investigations. And

1:17:09I saw its value. Uh I say I saw how it could help  detectives identify vehicles, establish timelines,

1:17:17develop leads, and ultimately solve serious  crimes. And I became a believer in the technology.

1:17:23It was under my leadership that we expanded our  use of ALPR technology to where we are today. But

1:17:28I also want to be candid about something else. At  that point, I was primarily seeing the benefits

1:17:34of the technology. It wasn't until the fall of  2025 when I read an article published by the ACLU

1:17:40concerning data sharing associated with an ALPR  technology that some of the additional concerns

1:17:45were brought to my attention. And I'll admit it  set some alarm bells off for me. I began taking

1:17:51a much closer look at our own system, how we were  using it, and what policies and safeguards we had

1:17:56in place and I realized we did not have a specific  ALPR policy at that time. And that was concerning

1:18:04to me because when I became chief in 2023,  one of my priorities was to make the Quinsey

1:18:08Police Department an accredited law enforcement  agency. Accreditation means that our policies and

1:18:13procedures are reviewed by uh an outside auditor  to ensure that we're consistent with uh state law,

1:18:20recent court decisions, and current best practices  and policing. We began going through our policy

1:18:25systematically starting with our highest risk,  highest frequency, and highest liability areas,

1:18:30things like use of force, uh pursuits and things  like that. Um this process is still ongoing today

1:18:36and we're working towards accreditation in  2027. So when I realized in 2025 that we did

1:18:42not have a specific ALPR policy, we began the  process of developing one. By December of 2025,

1:18:49we had our first draft. We also met with flock  representatives to confirm exactly how we were

1:18:54using the system, who owned the data being  collected, what controls were available to us,

1:18:59and what safeguards, what guardrails were in  place. Based on that work, on January 15, 2026,

1:19:05the Quinsey Police Department issued its first  formal ALPR policy. Then on March 13, 2026, we

1:19:12conducted training for all ALPR users. We didn't  simply issue a policy and put it in a in a binder.

1:19:19We brought it to the people who actually use the  system in a room, made sure they understood the

1:19:24rules, the guardrails, and our expectations  for how the technology was to be used. Uh,

1:19:29then came June 7th. I was invited to attend a  Sunday afternoon meeting at the library concerning

1:19:34flock. Um although I wasn't allowed to speak  that evening, I did speak with several residents

1:19:38afterward. One conversation in particular had a  significant impact on me. I spoke with a gentleman

1:19:44named Andrew who spoke here tonight. Uh he lives  on Brook Road and he raised concerns that I'd not

1:19:48previously heard regarding an incident in Mountain  View, California, and allegations concerning

1:19:53unauthorized data sharing. That conversation  caused me to ask a very simple question. Do we

1:19:59know exactly how our system is configured, who can  access our information, and where that information

1:20:05can go? I asked my command staff to conduct a  comprehensive review of our ALPR system. And as a

1:20:12direct result of that review, on August 6th, 2026,  we shut off all nationwide sharing and all sharing

1:20:20with outside law enforcement agencies, local,  state, and federal. We then published the results

1:20:25of that review on the department's website on  August 10th. Then on September 8th, I came before

1:20:30this council. I heard from residents. I listened  to the concerns that were raised. And after that

1:20:35meeting, I took an even deeper dive into our use  of the tech of the technology. And as a result,

1:20:40we made another significant step. We reduced our  data retention period from 30 days to 14 days. and

1:20:46we began the process of developing a new policy  consistent with the Massachusetts Major City

1:20:52Chiefs of Police Association model policy on ALPR  use. So when I look at this timeline, I don't see

1:20:58a department that has been ignoring these issues.  I see a department that has used this technology

1:21:03for approximately 15 years for investigative  purposes and that has increasingly put policies,

1:21:09training, restrictions, and oversight around  that technology as we have learned more about

1:21:14its capabilities and its potential risks. And I  think that distinction is important. I believe in

1:21:20AL technology because I've seen firsthand what it  can do for victims of serious crimes. But I also

1:21:26believe that law enforcement has an obligation  to recognize that just because technology can

1:21:30do something doesn't necessarily mean we should do  it. The question for us is where that line should

1:21:36be. And that is ultimately what our policies,  restrictions, our audits, and our oversight

1:21:41are designed to address. We have an obligation  to protect our community from crime. But I also

1:21:46believe we have an an obligation to protect  the constitutional rights and civil liberties

1:21:50of people who live in this city. I believe we can  and we must do both. Um, now if I could, I'd just

1:21:56like to walk you through, it's about four or five  slides to show you how our system actually works.

1:22:03So, can I just say one thing? I inadvertently uh  named Lieutenant Fyerty, Lieutenant Polarity. He

1:22:10doesn't mind. And I greatly apologize. I just  want to congratulate Lieutenant Ferty at his

1:22:15recent promotion to Lieutenant So, we could  all just give him a round of applause. Uh,

1:22:21especially after he really helped me out down  there at the waterfront. So, thank you so much.

1:22:25I apologize. Uh, no problem. Um, all right. So,  what you're going to see here is the first of all,

1:22:31when a when a detective or an investigator out of  our 234 um uh officers, 48 of them have access to

1:22:40the system. Uh, it's only our our detectives,  our accident investigators, uh, and a couple

1:22:45of supervisors and our two crime analysts. Um, so  what they do is when they log in, it's two-factor

1:22:52uh authentication so that there's no sharing  of passwords. Uh, the detective would log in,

1:22:57then they'd get a code sent to their workphone.  They'd enter the code, then they'd have access

1:23:00to this uh, flock uh, search screen. So, what  you're going to see up on the top there um, is

1:23:08the red asterisks are all required fields. So, you  need a reason, uh, you need the type of crime, and

1:23:14you need a case number. So, what we did here, uh,  you'll see the drop down on the, uh, on the top

1:23:22left there. So, the detective or the investigator  will have to go in. They have to pick the specific

1:23:27crime that they're investigating. Then the bottom  drop down, they're going to put in the reason for

1:23:33the search. All of these have to be uh, filled in.  And then they have to put in a case number. So,

1:23:40that case number there is an actual um, case  number. Detective Lieutenant Steve Odonu helped me

1:23:45out so that he he did a test data CAD entry. So if  you were to run that case number in our system, it

1:23:51would come up as a flock test data. Uh and he put,  you'll see here, he put his work vehicle in the

1:23:56uh the plate field. So he's looking to see uh the  timeline there between 11:00 a.m. and 100 p.m. And

1:24:05that's what we get. So between 11 and 1 on October  4th, you'll see two areas where his vehicle was

1:24:15picked up. Uh Bergen Parkway and Hannon Parkway  within about 2 minutes of each other. So that's

1:24:21all we get. Um that's what a detective would get.  They'd look at that as a lead. Um now what you'll

1:24:27notice here is we're not told whose vehicle that  is. Flock doesn't have access to the registry of

1:24:33motor vehicles. so that we know that that's a  Quinsey police vehicle or it's Mark Kennedy's

1:24:37vehicle. It doesn't know. The detective then has  to take the next step and run that plate through

1:24:43uh sieges uh the basically the registry of  motor vehicles to find out who owns the car. So,

1:24:49you know, this isn't uh the the sieges system  is also independently audited by the state. If I

1:24:56wanted to run uh Drake May's uh car to see where  he lived, I'd be getting a call from somebody.

1:25:00they'd probably be getting suspended and um you'd  have a new police chief. So um there is there is

1:25:06a a second level of security when you're talking  about these plates. And I think I didn't do a good

1:25:11enough job explaining that before that we don't  know whose car it is. All we're getting is a

1:25:15picture of a vehicle and um and sometimes a clear  license plate. Sometimes at night it might not be

1:25:21clear. You might not get anything. But that's  all we're getting. It's not live video. It's

1:25:24a capture of um of the specific vehicle that we  were looking for. And that is all I have on that.

1:25:36So with that, I'm happy to answer  any questions you might have.

1:25:42So I think I think what we're  going to do is we're going to

1:25:45um let everybody speak and then go back  for questions. Thank you. Thank you.

1:26:04Next, we'll have the district attorney  of Northfor County, Michael Moresy.

1:26:20Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the  council. Um, I just like to point out that

1:26:26obviously I'm one of the users of the results  of flock in the district attorney's office,

1:26:30but flock is only a a clue or a lead in building  a case and people aren't found guilty on the

1:26:36strength of flock alone. But there you have to  remember there's only a limited number of users

1:26:41who who have access to it and uh it leaves an  electronic fingerprint as to who is using the

1:26:47system much as the same police who actually have  access to the RMV or SEIUS which contains some of

1:26:53the same data that may be available from flock and  even much more data is available. We allow them

1:26:58to use that product those products every day to  help resolve issues and crimes. Now, at to date,

1:27:04no constitutional issues have been identified.  And obviously, that's something that I'm sure will

1:27:09make its way through the courts as we go along.  And we abide by the constitution. But it's also

1:27:14important to point out that people forget that a  violation of flock uh is uh is often uh can lead

1:27:21to criminal charges. A a conviction of illegal  use or activity can lead to a conviction which

1:27:28may carry with it both jail time. And for those  of you that may be unfamiliar with the public

1:27:32pension system is that if you get convicted of a  misdemeanor or a felony in the courts and scope

1:27:37of your employment, you lose your pension. It's  a pretty big penalty that people pay. And so you

1:27:42think that people want to willy-nilly go in and  use a system now. I don't want to say too much

1:27:47about the penalties, but there is uh something  that is that's been in the news more recently

1:27:52and that's winding its way through the courts  which uh which may have those types of outcomes.

1:27:58If you have any concerns about the use of of uh  of you know flock in some respects, then do me

1:28:04a favor. Think about if if you have your cell  phone on right now, then I can tell and with a

1:28:11certain amount of data. I mean, obviously you need  a search warrant to get into someone's cell phone,

1:28:15but the amount of information that is included  in your cell phone is unbelievable. It will put

1:28:19you right here at city hall. If you use ways to  get here, I can tell you how you got here within

1:28:2430 feet of accuracy. You can tell me where I'm  standing. And so there's a lot more information

1:28:28if you use the health data in the phone. It's  tracking every step. There's other there's other

1:28:33apps that most of us have that that will lead  to data collection and it's something that is

1:28:36obviously used by law enforcement on some of the  more important cases. Now uh we work hand inand on

1:28:42on murder cases um because by law the district  attorney has jurisdiction but we work with the

1:28:48local departments but I just wanted to to mention  three examples that some people may be familiar

1:28:52with. Um, there was a violent assault at the MBTA  and much of it was captured by the MBTA cameras,

1:28:59but it didn't give us a plate, but it did show the  attack and a vehicle description. Now, the MBTA,

1:29:05by the way, has some of the most advanced  highresolution cameras in the Commonwealth,

1:29:09and and the information they get is extremely  important, much as many people here have sought

1:29:14to have uh body cameras. You can get some some  great information from that. But while you could

1:29:20see the crime and see what was identified a car,  it was flock that actually allowed us to get the

1:29:25license plate and allowed the Quinsey police to  track down the car to a neighborhood in Wallist

1:29:29and then later allowed them to enter the dwelling  and probably saved the woman from being brutalized

1:29:34further. So that's, you know, one good example  that that recent that people may be familiar

1:29:39with. We had a a gang/jugrelated shooting at a  Quinsey apartment complex. They had great security

1:29:45cameras at the complex that helped us identify  what had happened and and who was showing up.

1:29:50The asalants were well disguised and and but  vehicles were identified. Now, flock cameras

1:29:55allowed us to actually track those vehicles back  before the event to a merchant in Quinsey that

1:30:00had good surveillance activities and helped us  identify some of the perpetrators. And then after

1:30:05the incident, Flock also helped us track them to  another apartment complex after they committed

1:30:11the crime and killed the individual in the garage  to another complex in Quinsey and then eventually

1:30:16leading to a number of suspects being arrested  and and finally some of you are familiar with

1:30:21um Brookline is part of North County and um  one of the more high-profiles events occurred

1:30:28when the MIT professor was was shot to death in  Brooklyn. Now, initially, if you watch the event,

1:30:34the the FBI uh made an arrest in Providence, which  later turned out they had a release individual.

1:30:39They had the wrong person. The FBI provided  a description of a vehicle to surrounding

1:30:45communities, which honestly turned out to be  inaccurate. And and then they also said, and it

1:30:52was widely distributed over the media, that the  activities at Brown University were not related

1:30:56to the Brooklyn shooting, which also turned out to  be not true. So when the Brookline event happened,

1:31:02the Brooklyn police, the state police assigned  to the district attorney's office traveled to

1:31:07to Brooklyn and and um they started obviously  doing what you would expect, gathering data,

1:31:12canvasing a neighborhood, and because of a  description of one of the younger members

1:31:15of the professor's family, we helped to identify  that the asalent was wearing a bright yellow vest,

1:31:20like a delivery person. And although we didn't  have a full description, we did have someone with

1:31:26a bright yellow vest. now door-to-door canvasing  netted uh footage of individual with yellow vest

1:31:32walking on the sidewalks in that neighborhood  at that time. And then additional information

1:31:38came came forward again through mostly private  surveillance activities that showed a vehicle and

1:31:44uh in the vehicle was a gentleman wearing a yellow  bright vest just like the one described just like

1:31:50the one that was seen on the street. So, well, we  now had we believe the asalent in the car. We have

1:31:54a better description of the car, which clearly  was much better than what the FBI had down in

1:31:59Providence. So, we had the color make and model,  but no license plate on the vehicle. So, again,

1:32:04additional work was done um on on this case.  And as we move through it, Brookine Police,

1:32:09state police continued to canvas and track the  vehicles movements down Commonwealth A into

1:32:15Watertown and Wam and on to Route 128 North. A  lot of that was done by oldfashioned police work,

1:32:20getting security cameras, talking to people  that may have seen something. But the funny

1:32:25thing about it, by happen stance, there was a  body camera that was on the route that actually

1:32:29picked up the the the asalent and and also there  was flock cameras, and I know someone mentioned

1:32:35Waltham. There was the flock cameras in Waltham  that allowed us to get the plate of the vehicle.

1:32:40So now we had a main plate, the make and model  of the car and and we're able to with the main

1:32:45plate have the main state police within hours  talk to the owners of that plate and find out

1:32:50that the plate had been had expired and was sold  at a flea market. So uh that at least you know

1:32:56took them out of the picture. But now we know what  happened to the place. That information was then

1:33:00shared with the FBI who had been researching the  financial data and identified that the asalent had

1:33:05rented a storage unit in southern New Hampshire.  Ironically, the car with the with the main plates,

1:33:11the information that was gathered by the  Brookline and State Police was found at that

1:33:15facility. Later, as they entered the facility,  they found that the asalant had uh been dead from

1:33:21self-inflicted gunshot wounds and the same weapon  that actually killed the MIT professor. So, Flock

1:33:27Sammers were pretty instrumental in moving this  case very quickly at a rapid pace to identify.

1:33:33Now, we live in I've grown up in the city uh  probably longer than most of you and my family's

1:33:38been here a long time. It's a large city. We're  next to one of the the obviously the the hub,

1:33:43the the city of Boston and and uh the city has  had a long commitment to public safety. We do well

1:33:50because of of many of you understand and if you  gone to the local schools, we have good schools,

1:33:54good public safety, and people want to live here,  but being safe and being safe in your home is is a

1:33:59critical function. And now I I know that that um  there's obviously some some concern about flock,

1:34:05but it's really another tool. No one gets  convicted. In fact, flock actually has

1:34:09exonerated people because people tell you a  story. You know, if I was to say that that

1:34:14um if I told someone I was here at city hall, I'm  sure coming and going that my car is going to be

1:34:18on a flock camera heading to North Quinsey. So,  they would know the time I probably that generally

1:34:23the time I arrived, but my telephone probably puts  me in the room with you with you people right now.

1:34:28So, I I would just ask that that um you know,  I'm sure some changes can be made. I suggest

1:34:33that having spent some time in the legislature  that it's also an issue for the legislators to

1:34:38consider as well because that's that also can  provide some guardrails and safeguards. But I

1:34:43just hope that you uh you don't get rid of what  I consider one of the more valuable tools to stop

1:34:47violent crimes. Especially when I first started  as district attorney, we had just two district

1:34:52attorneys doing gun cases. Now almost every  attorney in the superior court has a gun case

1:34:57because of proliferation of firearms. The largest  single killer and preventable deaths in North

1:35:02County are drug overdoses. And obviously flock  cameras have helped convict those people who are

1:35:07poisoning our young people. So I just ask for your  consideration of of giving them and letting them

1:35:11use a tool with appropriate safeguards to allow  this community to be as safe as it is. Thank you.

1:35:24We're now going to have Gideon  Epstein of policy council at the ACLU.

1:35:36Good evening, members of the council. My name is  Gideon Epstein and I'm a policy counsel with the

1:35:39ACLU of Massachusetts with the ACLU's technology  for liberty program and our team has been working

1:35:45on license plate reader surveillance issues for  over a decade. Um my colleague who's been leading

1:35:51our team's efforts on this issue uh first wrote  a report about license plate reader technology

1:35:58just after the Boston bombing. So that tells  you how long we've been working on this issue

1:36:03and how long we've been trying to convince local,  state, and federal lawmakers to take a close look

1:36:08at this issue. Our team over the past year has  engaged in widespread public records requests

1:36:15to police departments across the state, including  the Quinsey Police Department. And what we found

1:36:21from those public records requests is that  over 80 police departments across the state

1:36:26were at one time contracted with Flock Safety.  And we found that this company, Flock Safety,

1:36:32was effectively incentivizing local police  departments to engage in widespread, often

1:36:38nationwide data sharing. We also found that Flock  enables its customers to retain a license plate

1:36:44reader data for extended periods of time, often 30  days, which allows law enforcement to paint a very

1:36:50vivid picture of ordinary residents everyday  movements. We also found a number of contract

1:36:57problems. contract language that gave Flock, the  company, and not its customers in law enforcement,

1:37:03the ability to control their own data. And the  case that's been discussed in Boston, where Flock

1:37:11shared Boston's license plate reader data against  the wishes of local officials, exemplifies this

1:37:17very problem. Even when Boston had better  contract language that would have otherwise

1:37:22prevented the sharing of this data, Flock shared  its data externally anyway, sharing Boston's data

1:37:28with Flock's nationwide network. And that just  goes to show that municipalities are not in full

1:37:34control of their data when they're contracting  with a company like Flock Safety. The other big

1:37:40takeaway from our public records request uh was um  a lot of audit data. Um, every single Flock search

1:37:48um is logged in, uh, reviewable audit logs that  show individual police departments queries within

1:37:55Flock's database as well as external searches uh,  reflecting the complete scope of any data sharing

1:38:02going on. And as I mentioned a few moments ago,  these audit logs first of all showed widespread

1:38:07data sharing. They showed that uh law enforcement  and police officers in places as far as Texas and

1:38:14Georgia and California were querying Massachusetts  police departments license plate reader data which

1:38:21puts a number of vulnerable communities at risk.  The other thing we found from these audit logs

1:38:26was very frequent use of completely vague and  non-escriptive search reasons. Search reasons

1:38:32like information or investigation or wanted.  These are the same kinds of searches that leave

1:38:39uh police departments unable to hold officers  accountable who make them. Um so here in Quinsey

1:38:45and across the country, we saw officers making  searches with those kinds of vague search reasons.

1:38:50And those kinds of searches uh completely leave  the door open for potential abuse. And you know,

1:38:57one one example that I think is poignant um to  that point is that in Milwaukee, for example,

1:39:02a police officer used the search reason  investigation over 120 times to track a single

1:39:08vehicle and uh subsequent investigations revealed  that that officer was tracking their ex-girlfriend

1:39:14at the time. Um as we've seen in other cases  throughout the state. Taking a step back,

1:39:19I just want to talk about uh some of the basics of  license plate readers. Um, I don't want to spend

1:39:24too much time on it, but uh, of course, I think  all of us know these are AI powered cameras placed

1:39:30throughout roadways in Massachusetts and here in  Quinsey. And they capture a remarkable amount of

1:39:36information about every passing vehicle, not just  vehicles with someone who's suspected of some kind

1:39:41of criminal wrongdoing. Literally every passing  vehicle. Um, these cameras not only collect

1:39:47license plate information, but other vehicle  fingerprint information like the make, the model,

1:39:53the color, and any distinguishing characteristics  of every single passing vehicle. And that's why

1:39:59this technology amounts to drag net surveillance,  meaning that it collects data on all of us, aiming

1:40:05to identify uh possible criminal behavior, but  ultimately uh ends up in the erroneous detention

1:40:11or arrest of many individuals. And those kinds  of issues uh not only come down to human error,

1:40:18they also come down to machine error. These flock  cameras do not read license plates accurately

1:40:23100% of the time. DHS reports suggest that flock  cameras uh read license plates accurately about

1:40:3093% of the time. Meaning that for a substantial  chunk of reads, uh the machine is simply making

1:40:36an error. And those kinds of errors result  in erroneous stops of innocent people who

1:40:40have nothing to do with criminal activity. And  in some cases uh they also result in criminal

1:40:46arrests. We recently heard about a case in the  recent congressional hearing where a woman in

1:40:51Florida was arrested and subsequently detained  for several days um because her license plate

1:40:58was read incorrectly. So there's the possibility  and the likelihood of humans making mistakes or

1:41:05abusing this technology. And there's also the  risk that the machines themselves will make

1:41:10mistakes. And I think that's an important point to  understand. Beyond all the information that these

1:41:15cameras collect on every single passing vehicle,  the most important thing for you to understand

1:41:20is that this is location tracking technology.  And that's why this technology implicates our

1:41:25constitutional rights. And I want to talk a little  bit about the legal landscape uh with respect to

1:41:31license plate readers at the moment. Um, a lot of  prior speakers have g given uh helpful snapshots,

1:41:38but just to give you the fuller picture, when  you think about proponents of flock license plate

1:41:44readers, they often suggest that drivers don't  have a reasonable expectation of privacy on public

1:41:51roadways. And our team would entirely disagree  with that very premise. uh the Supreme Court has

1:41:58said in cases like Carpenter of the United States  and more recently in Chhatri that uh people do

1:42:04retain a reasonable expectation of privacy even as  they move about in public places. Those cases were

1:42:10with respect to other sorts of location tracking  technology, but other federal courts are beginning

1:42:16to address this issue of license plate reader  surveillance and location tracking as well.

1:42:21Um, as folks have mentioned, a federal judge  in Oklahoma just a few days ago ruled that

1:42:27use of flock cameras did constitute a search  for constitutional purposes under the fourth

1:42:32amendment. Uh, and law enforcement in that case  would have been required to obtain a warrant. Uh,

1:42:38in that case, um, law enforcement decided to  track the historical location movements of a

1:42:45woman simply because she had a California  license plate while traveling in Oklahoma.

1:42:50So that gives you an idea of the kind of uh facts  that um are the basis for that decision. Finally,

1:42:56here in Massachusetts, regardless of what's  going on in Oklahoma or in the fifth circuit,

1:43:01um which many flock proponents uh frequently cite  um because there are conflicting court decisions

1:43:08on this question of whether use of license plate  readers constitutes a search for constitutional

1:43:13purposes. But what really matters is what courts  have said here in Massachusetts. And here in

1:43:17Massachusetts, our highest court has said in  Commonwealth v. McCarthy that with enough cameras

1:43:22in enough locations, use of this technology  would constitute a search for constitutional

1:43:27purposes. So, courts are beginning to erect  guardrails around this kind of technology. Um,

1:43:35but we're not yet at that point where there are  sufficient guardrails. We also don't have any

1:43:40statewide guardrails here in Massachusetts  unlike uh effectively all of our neighbors

1:43:45across Massachusetts in Maine, in Vermont, in New  Hampshire. They have strong license plate reader

1:43:50regulations in place. Um and to some extent there  may be frameworks like New Hampshire state law

1:43:56that prevent license plate readers from acting as  true draget surveillance technology. Um, basically

1:44:03if you can purge uh non-suspects information  extremely quickly, then you can still allow law

1:44:09enforcement to retain that information. But the  main takeaway is that Massachusetts does not have

1:44:14that kind of legislation enacted right now. And  it's very challenging at the local level to enact

1:44:19guard rails uh that are that are sufficient to  prevent abuse of this technology. And that's why

1:44:25um I'm here to echo residents ask for you to place  a complete ban on license plate reader technology.

1:44:31um and a ban that's not limited to only  this sort of surveillance technology. Uh we

1:44:36have also historically supported bans on facial  recognition and I think many residents concerns

1:44:42uh cover the fact that license plate readers  have developed greatly technologically over

1:44:48the past 10 to 15 years in terms of of their  AI capabilities. It's not yet clear where

1:44:53we're going for from here. Um and that's why  it's important for uh local leaders to take

1:44:58control over this technology. this technology was  deployed without any kind of meaningful consent

1:45:04um any kind of meaningful democratic consent.  And that's why in addition to a local ban,

1:45:09we would ask the council to consider an ordinance  that would give the community true control over

1:45:15police surveillance tools. In other words, giving  the council the authority to approve or disapprove

1:45:21of specific enumerated surveillance technologies  like license plate readers, like facial

1:45:26recognition. Because this issue is so much bigger  than just one company or one type of technology,

1:45:32there's a host of AI powered surveillance  technology already here. And it's a good idea

1:45:37for communities to take stock of their local  police department's use of these technologies

1:45:42and ensure that there's a true public process um  before any possible continued use of any of these

1:45:48technologies. So in closing um I'll repeat that  we are encouraging the council to completely ban

1:45:55this technology in the absence of any statewide  guard rails before cameras were put up in the

1:46:01first place. There should have been a public  hearing. There should have been an opportunity

1:46:05for residents to express any concerns they had  and that simply didn't happen. And that's why

1:46:10it's important for local leaders to start at  square one here and from the outset ban this

1:46:15technology and if they choose to hold a public  process to discuss possible reintroduction of

1:46:20any technology like license plate readers. Um  ultimately in closing, Flock is an incredibly

1:46:27unreliable company when it comes to uh license  plate reader vendors generally. We've heard

1:46:32about a number of cases here in Massachusetts in  places like Littleton and Cambridge where Flock

1:46:38has put up or reactivated cameras after local  leaders have chosen to pause deployment of them.

1:46:46They also open the door for abuse. And uh I  appreciate everything that the local police

1:46:51department here in Quinsey has done to erect  some basic guardrails around this technology.

1:46:56But uh there also should be accountability for the  fact that there were effectively no rules in place

1:47:01uh for nearly a decade it seems. Um since this  this department has been deploying license plate

1:47:07readers for some time at this point. Um, this is  dragnet surveillance without democratic consent

1:47:13and I want to thank you for your time. Happy  to answer any questions you might have after.

1:47:27Okay, we're going to have uh Matthew Ross,

1:47:30a professor from Nor Eastern  University in economics.

1:47:40Thank you for having me. Uh my name is Matthew  Ross. I'm an associate professor of public policy

1:47:45and economics from Nor Eastern. I will uh I'm  going to try to focus my comments on two areas of

1:47:52my expertise. One is um what we know about flock,  the benefits, the potential costs. The second is,

1:47:59you know, how I think you all should and I think  about these sort of questions about whether to

1:48:04implement a new technology that enhances public  safety and sort of how to weigh the costs and

1:48:09benefits for a decision like this. Uh before I  do that, I would be remiss if especially as an

1:48:15academic if I didn't give you my credentials  here, but I want to I want to just give you

1:48:19a bit of background about myself so that when we  get to the question phase, you sort of know where

1:48:23to direct the your questions. I am certainly not a  lawyer. I'm also not a law enforcement uh expert.

1:48:28I am trained as an economist. Um all of my work  to date focuses largely on the economics of crime,

1:48:35policing, enforcement activities. Um I have done  research with large policing agencies across the

1:48:41country, Dallas, Texas, Seattle, Washington, uh  DC Metro. Also served as a subject matter expert

1:48:48and an expert witness for the US Department  of Justice and the Civil Rights Division.

1:48:52I've also done it for a number of state attorneys  generals, New Jersey, um Virginia. Uh I've also

1:48:59served as a expert witness on plaintiff side.  So I've worked for the ACLU before. I've also

1:49:05worked on for law enforcement agencies. I've I've  uh been a witness for the city of Boston for for

1:49:10Boston PD. Um so the way that I would think about  this is that you know, as the chief alluded to,

1:49:18license plate readers have been around for quite  a while. remember when I've done a ton of work

1:49:22in Connecticut. Um I remember when they first  rolled out there and you know I went on a ride

1:49:26along probably 15 years ago when first time they  had uh license plate readers in a car and it was

1:49:32like amazing technology back then. They would  flip on a switch, license plate reader would go

1:49:36on and you just hear it pinging about unregistered  expired registrations uh expired license plates.

1:49:42Um what's different about Flock Technology sort  of just to set the scene here is that it is really

1:49:48it's they're a tech company. They started off  providing lowcost license plate readers. That was

1:49:53their comparative advantage in the marketplace.  They were using basically cell phones that were

1:49:56hooked up to the Wi-Fi network. Today they've  moved far beyond that. So they create a network

1:50:01of linked data that can trace out an individual's  movements over time in space. I think also

1:50:08um you know I think one thing I want to point out  is you know Flock continues to market itself as an

1:50:13ALPR vendor. That's that's how they sort of sell  themselves to the public and policing agencies

1:50:19and I think it's slightly disingenuous. They are a  technology company first and foremost. Their plans

1:50:25are larger than license plate readers. They have,  you know, they've announced publicly that they

1:50:29plan to move into facial recognition technology.  It's also, you know, from the contract language

1:50:34I've seen in other states, they they you know,  publicly will say things like, you know, we we you

1:50:40know, Quinsey owns Quinsey's data. We don't own  any of Quinsey's data. you don't sell the data,

1:50:45the license plate scans to third-party companies.  If you actually look in the language of most of

1:50:50their boilerplate contracts, it's not actually  true. Flock does not technically own the data,

1:50:54but they maintain a perpetual license that lasts  forever. And while they're not allowed to sell

1:50:59scans of the license plates to outside entities,  they are allowed to aggregate that up and sell it

1:51:05as data. So, I'll confess as a researcher, I've  used data from thirdparty cell phones. I've used

1:51:11it for research purposes. I have access to data  now that's 10% of the US population anonymized

1:51:17cell phones. So no doubt in the future Flock like  any of these other companies that gobbles up this

1:51:22kind of data will inevitably sell it for marketing  purposes. So just to set the playing field about

1:51:28what the technology actually is. That said, I'm  not necessarily for or against Flock, right?

1:51:34I think my position is that we actually flock  perhaps could be a lowcost effective way to you

1:51:42know clear more cases for many police departments  across the country to solve a problem where they

1:51:47have a scarce number of detectives right there's  fewer detectives are operating on tighter budgets

1:51:51than ever before maybe this is an effective way to  solve more crimes but as of right now the state of

1:51:57the evidence the scholarship around this area is  completely lacking so there have been by my count

1:52:03I fiveish rep reputable studies on flock and I  would say only one of them is really considered

1:52:09rigorous. The other there's two that are like  arteasonal one-off studies in small agencies maybe

1:52:16the size of Quinsey right you think a study that's  the size you know on a particular city that's the

1:52:22size of Quinsey is probably not generalizable to  the whole country I certainly don't um the other

1:52:27studies that have been done that have shown big  benefits from flock were commissioned in fact by

1:52:32flock and they were done in ways that were not so  rigorous there is to date one study that I would

1:52:37consider rigorous on flock and it shows small to  uh I would say modest benefits in terms of motor

1:52:46vehicle theft and low-level property crimes. There  is no evidence that that flock has broadly helped

1:52:54policing agencies solve violent crimes or more  serious types of offenses there. Now that said,

1:52:59there are numerous anecdotes out there that  they have been helpful in identifying where

1:53:03missing persons, solving Amber alerts, you know,  solving uh um shootings where they don't know the

1:53:10individual is involved. There are anecdotes about  that, but to date there is no evidence that that

1:53:14is the case. You know, the other thing that I,  you know, at the start of this I said I would

1:53:20speak to is how to weigh the costs and benefits.  So as an economist, you know, I study crime,

1:53:24I study policing, but I'm an economist and I, you  know, the way I think about things is in terms

1:53:28of costbenefit analyses. So if I was weighing  flock technology, I think relative to what the

1:53:35law enforcement agency is actually purchasing in  terms of technology, the costs are relatively low,

1:53:40right? As I said, I think I personally am  a little bit skeptical about why they're so

1:53:44low and what they're intending to do with all of  that data eventually to subsidize that low cost.

1:53:50It's the same thing with social media platforms  being cheap because they eventually aggregate all

1:53:54that data and sell it. Um, the other thing I think  I'd be concerned about in terms of cost is that

1:54:00while there might be benefits in terms of solving  property crimes, I think I'd have some concerns

1:54:04about, you know, how folks like those in this room  might, you know, view the police going forward,

1:54:11right? I tend to think about policing as really  having three inputs, right? One of them is police

1:54:16officers, manpower. The other one is technology  like flock. And the third and one of the most

1:54:21important ones is community cooperation. So if you  are increasing technology which is in improving

1:54:27public safety, I think I'd also be worried at the  same time you're decreasing community cooperation.

1:54:32You have less people willing to talk to the  police, cooperate with the police. Um so yeah,

1:54:37with that I will bring it to a close. Happy  to talk about any of my concerns or more

1:54:41specifically about the research. I'm also happy  to send the council any of the research papers

1:54:46that have been done to date. As I said, I think  the evidence is is fairly limited. I will add,

1:54:50I guess, one other thing just to emphasize  that last point. The evidence is so limited

1:54:54that I am at Northeastern, I'm a fellow with one  of these large philanthropies that does criminal

1:55:01justice research. And just two weeks ago, they  put out a call to a select few of us that do

1:55:06this type of thing, basically offering to give us  hundreds of thousands of dollars to go study flock

1:55:11technology because there's so little research  out there. So, don't think the benefits are

1:55:16documented quite in the way that the the company  pitches them as. Thank you. Thank you so much.

1:55:28We'll have Brian Hurley, a Quinsey  resident and systems engineer.

1:55:39Hello. Uh my name is Brian Hurley. As stated,  I'm a systems engineer. Um, what this essentially

1:55:45means is that some of my duties involve evaluating  different products and services offered by vendors

1:55:52and then I implement and maintain those  products after they've been purchased. Uh,

1:55:57I've been in this role for about three years  now with six years total working professionally

1:56:03in information technology. And I want to just  first say thank you for inviting me here tonight.

1:56:09This is both an exciting and honestly slightly  terrifying experience. Um, first for the sake of

1:56:17transparency, I want to quickly just state  my personal opinions on ALPR technology

1:56:23uh that Flock and others offer. Uh, and then I'm  going to go into my professional opinion based

1:56:29on my current experience and the documents that  were provided in the agenda for tonight's meeting.

1:56:36Personally, I believe that ALPR systems and  other mass surveillance tech is unethical and

1:56:42does not really respect the privacy of everyday  citizens. The only thing that tech like this does

1:56:48is generally make people feel angry and scared.  And I personally don't really support it. Now,

1:56:54for the professional part, like  I said, I'm going to go into the

1:56:59uh documents, specifically the uh flock  customer agreement that was provided.

1:57:04This is going to be a little bit wordy because  I am quoting a few things from that document. So

1:57:10under that customer agreement section 1.2  states that agency data meaning the data,

1:57:16media and content provided by the agency  through the services. For an avoidance of doubt,

1:57:22the agency content will include footage and  geoloccation information and environmental data

1:57:28collected by the sensors built into these units.  In this case, the agency that they're referring

1:57:34to is QuincyB uh PD and the units are the actual  Flock devices. Later in section 4.2 two on agency

1:57:43and non- agency enduser data. It states that  Quincy PD will grant Flock a quote non-exclusive

1:57:50perpetual irrevocable worldwide royal royalty-free  fully paid license to use, reproduce, modify,

1:57:59and distribute the agency data and non- agency end  user data as a part of the aggregated data defined

1:58:06in section 4.4. In section 4.4 four on aggregated  data. It states that quote flock shall have the

1:58:14right to collect and analyze the data and other  information relating to this provision uh use and

1:58:22performance of the various aspects of the services  and related systems and technologies. It also

1:58:28states that QuincyBD quote acknowledges that Flock  will be compiling anonymized and/or aggregated

1:58:36data based on this agency data. At first, this  sounds fairly good. However, nowhere in this

1:58:43document does it state what steps will be taken to  anonymize this data or what type of data that they

1:58:49plan to redact. This is a very important thing to  have and normally should be covered in agreements

1:58:56like this. I have to read through agreements like  these all the time uh as I evaluate different

1:59:02products. Um, and as an example of why this is  important to have, I just say or I just point to

1:59:10the December 2025 uh release of documents from  the Department of Justice uh in related to the

1:59:17Epstein files. You might have heard on the news  that uh these files were blacked out. However,

1:59:24if someone were to highlight them and copy and  paste that into a new document, you could easily

1:59:30see all the redacted out information. Because that  uh processes are not explicitly provided in this

1:59:39document, we don't know if our data is being  anonymized by similar ineffective practices.

1:59:48Also, in section 4.4, for it states  that this aggregated data may be used

1:59:52for marketing purposes to help or to help uh  develop their services. Keep in mind that by

1:59:59develop their services um since they tend  to use a lot of AI and image recognition,

2:00:03this means that they are using that information to  train their models. And despite how you may feel

2:00:09about a lot of the larger AI companies that  they're and the things that they're doing,

2:00:15I think it's important to remember that those  companies are at least providing you with the

2:00:18option to opt out of the exact same type of data  collection that Flock can currently do under this

2:00:24agreement. All this is something that I would  find very concerning if this were agreement were

2:00:30to show up on my desk. Uh because of this, I would  support the removal of this technology. Thank you.

2:00:47And our last speaker tonight will  be Maxfield Capron. Yep. Quinsey

2:00:53resident representing a local civic  group raising awareness about flock.

2:01:02to set up here.

2:01:09All righty. Good evening, counselors. Uh my name  is Maxfield Capron, as we already know. We've

2:01:13announced that. Um I live at 118 Greenleaf  and uh this is my second ever uh speech,

2:01:20no speech at a public hearing. Um this time  obviously I'm a speaker. Um, but something I want

2:01:27to mention is even though this is my second time,  I have been following a um like civic action and

2:01:35um community action for a long time now. And um  throughout my uh degree um I'm currently a student

2:01:44at Bridgewwater State University um studying  astrophysics. Um something that is very important

2:01:50to me is um like the sort of uh things that we go  through in terms of data analysis making sure that

2:01:58everything is um uh properly audited and making  sure that everything is consistent and credible.

2:02:05Um so something I just wanted to uh talk about  today is um QPD's current flock uh usage um their

2:02:13searches um the network audits um and everything  relating to uh public data requests that we have

2:02:20made over the period of this year. Um so as many  of you know or maybe not um flock uh the um flock

2:02:28cameras um they hold uh they hold this data in  a um in a database. All of the searches that are

2:02:36made through the uh through QPD and uh through um  sort of like the the other networks that are uh

2:02:45searching into our system. Um so that that might  be like uh Texas or any other federal department

2:02:53um they have access and we see these logs. So  over the period of this year um there have been

2:03:00two requests that have been made um public data  uh requests um both of these data requests contain

2:03:07um event logs. So anytime the system um anytime  a user is added or deleted, anytime a hot list

2:03:15is created or destroyed, anytime a um an agency  is given access or not, and anytime um a hot list

2:03:24is updated, anything like that. Um the second kind  of data uh that is contained in these files um are

2:03:31network audits. Um network audits are essentially  a giant list of every single department that has

2:03:39uh searched our Quincy system. And uh the third  type of data is uh that same exact thing but only

2:03:46for QPD. So it shows the amount of searches that  QPD has made over months um what kind of searches

2:03:53um whether they contain case numbers or not.  And um yeah, so what I'm going to be talking

2:03:59about today is um essentially uh the research that  we've done um an analysis of both of these uh data

2:04:06requests um formalized into a paper that is before  you today. Um the independent data analysis for

2:04:13Flock APL ALPR program in Quincy, Massachusetts.  Um so I just want to share some findings um some

2:04:20fairly concerning findings um through this data  through this data analysis. So when I initially

2:04:29uh put this all together and have been thinking  about it for the past month since our uh first

2:04:34hearing on Flock on September 8th um and I learned  that we could just look through the data the uh

2:04:40the public data and see uh what exactly we have  like what QPD has searched um whether or not um

2:04:48they've been uh compliant with actually inputting  a case number and things like that. And um when I

2:04:55had I I kind of combined that research aspect of  my degree to the sort of civic action spark that

2:05:02I've been feeling for a while now. Um and that  kind of coalesed into um some public outreach

2:05:08that led to a coalition like a research group  um that has gone through um about three years

2:05:16worth of data ranging from J ranging from January  1st of 2023 to all the way up to September 6th of

2:05:242026. Um so this data is split up between uh  two data sets. One of them is Mukrock. Uh,

2:05:32Mukrock is an independent platform that um, uh,  that kind of takes these searches and hosts it on

2:05:38their databases um, on their websites and making  them publicly available um, easily accessed uh,

2:05:45for the public to be able to audit um, similar  to me and and me and others. Um and the second

2:05:50request was a private request that our um our  research team uh conducted and um the the date

2:05:59ranges for those two data releases um data release  one is from uh the 1st of January 2023 to April

2:06:0922nd of 2026. The second data release that we  that we received through the second public data

2:06:16request ranges from the beginning of this year,  January 1st, 2026, all the way to September 6th

2:06:22of 2026. So there's two data sets all ranging  from the beginning of 2023 to all the way till

2:06:30uh September 6th, 2026. There's a little bit  of overlap. Um so something I just want to uh

2:06:36talk about is uh our sort of findings on um the  exact numbers um that like the amount of network

2:06:44requests that were made uh monthtomonth. So, if  you look at um I believe it would be appendix E,

2:06:56um your copies of the report.

2:07:04So, in appendix E, um this is the data overlap  between um January of 2026 and March of 2026.

2:07:15Um data export one is that Mukrock data  and data export two is our personal

2:07:21uh data request. Um and you can see the  date that says January 2026, February 2026,

2:07:27March 26 26. Um something that concerned us when  we were looking at this data is just the raw

2:07:33numbers. So total network searches in January  of 2026 in the first data export are 610,226.

2:07:43But in the second data release  that we uh that we requested

2:07:48uh we were looking at the same month  and that number changed. There's a

2:07:52discrepancy. This is now at the total  network searches is now at 601,599.

2:08:01This isn't just the network searches either.  This also pertains to the QPD system as well.

2:08:07The amount of searches that are being made to the  flock system. So if you can see January 2026 to

2:08:14uh both of the data exports uh you can see total  QPD searches is 682 for the first data export and

2:08:22only 653 for the other data export. What this  is telling us is either Flock is intentionally

2:08:31hiding these or they're being rescended uh  for some reason. maybe the case wasn't valid

2:08:36or maybe the search wasn't valid. Um or they're  just disappearing, which is heavily concerning

2:08:43because if we're talking about um these  data releases holding people accountable,

2:08:48both the corporations and the people using them,  if we're seeing data go missing, then how are

2:08:55we supposed to know that something isn't being  covered up here? If something isn't adding up,

2:09:02something here just isn't adding up. Um and  so what I also want to highlight is um some

2:09:09other other things um other concerning things. Um  one thing in particular is um we wanted to know

2:09:17um what percentage of uh da what percentage of  searches made to the system contained case numbers

2:09:28from the from the beginning of our data set in  January of 2023 all the way up until February of

2:09:352025. Not a single search contained a case number.  not a single one. Next month was only 1.7%.

2:09:51And so that kind of brings us um actually let  me just reiterate uh you can see this data

2:09:57in appendix um appendex C and D um where they  are both um the data from Mukrock and the data

2:10:04from our personal search. Um, and that kind of  just shows um like we have a column for uh the

2:10:11percentage of QBD searches with a case number.  And so this kind of just tells us that um a case

2:10:18number for a long time has not been um a case  number has not been required for any searches.

2:10:26And if they are, um, sometimes they can be, um,  filled in a free text field where sometimes they

2:10:34can just be put in as ABCD or the letter A or a  name or something else that is not related to a

2:10:41case number. Doesn't have to be a case number.  It just something needs to be in there. Sorry,

2:10:48I'm just reorganizing myself a little bit. My my  brain is scrambled. Um, so the last thing that I

2:10:56also want to highlight um that is concerning to  me throughout um like some of the event logs um

2:11:04some of the individual searches that were created  um and some of the hot lists that were created. Um

2:11:13let let me just define a hot list here. A hot list  is essentially when an officer or an authorized

2:11:20user wants to um wants to track a specific person  of interest um over a specific period of time. So

2:11:28they can input a license plate and anytime that  license plate passes by any of the cameras,

2:11:34they will instantly get a notification of when and  where. Um and that those hits are um are logged

2:11:42um in that hot list specifically. Um in the hot  list field um which I believe is yes appendex A

2:11:50um you have the uh the time stamp of when  the hot list was created who created it

2:11:57um the event type whether it was created or  not um and the entity details. So for example

2:12:04um in the very first one here um if  you are all looking at appendex A

2:12:09um we have a hot list name uh for drug  invest uh with a license plate number um with

2:12:17uh no state description um no case number  and uh no expiration um and pardon my vulgar

2:12:25wordage here but the reason listed is jizz  and the next one after that is listed as jizz

2:12:32buyer. Throughout the rest of this report are  other examples of some of these egregious things

2:12:39like Islamic radical did fed time, no case number.  Um, one that concerned me the most, um, on, uh,

2:12:50August 6th of 2026, missed connect with white  female, no case number listed as DCU drug invest.

2:13:02This also follows into independent searches  as well where if you look at the next part

2:13:10um some of the reasons listed are I am cool  some as well as gypsy. Thank you for your time.

2:13:29I just want to thank all of our guest speakers  tonight. I think they had a lot of information

2:13:34to share with us and and I thank everybody  for getting up and speaking. It is very

2:13:39nerve-wracking. I'm sure you did a great job.  Everyone did a phenomenal job. From here on out,

2:13:45the counselors, if you have any  questions, now will be the time we

2:13:49will take questions and we'll start with  W three counselor Walter Hub. So, just

2:13:59All right. Thank you. Uh yeah through thank you  Mr. Chairman uh excellent job setting up this

2:14:04session. I wanted to say that publicly the  way you've framed it and the way you've set

2:14:08expectations in the sequence of events. I really  appreciate how thorough that's been. So thank you

2:14:13uh through you. So I've come in with a number of  questions from constituents and questions that I

2:14:21have from myself. Um, as a bit of background, my  day job, I design physical security systems that

2:14:29include camera systems, Noel DPR, uh, as well as  door access controls much like Mr. Fitz Farice,

2:14:36Fitz Maurice who mentioned earlier. Um, number  of questions that I had, I think a lot of them

2:14:42got answered by the pre presenters. So, first  off, thank you very much for everyone who came

2:14:47in with a well-prepared presentation. And I think  the the sign of a good presentation is one that

2:14:53anticipates questions and provides the answers  which sometimes leaves the question questioners

2:14:59with a little bit of a gasp of what to ask about.  But I do have a number of issues. Uh number of

2:15:04questions first. Um let's see. So I think we  covered the number of police officers that have

2:15:14access to it. I think it was 47 was the number if  I'm not mistaken. And those are all detectives and

2:15:20detective supervisors. Um, let's see. The current  data retention that the chief explained earlier

2:15:29was 30 days. We're thinking about moving to 14  days or have moved to 14 days if I heard that

2:15:34correctly. Um, let's just see. When it comes  to sharing data um with other agencies outside

2:15:43of Quinsey, currently that answer is none.  we are a uh configured closed system. Yeah,

2:15:50you're welcome to come up if you want to  reiterate or expand upon. Thank you. And

2:15:54some of my questions may bop around to different  people. So, apologies for that. Um just kind of

2:15:59going through a rapid fire. Uh earlier, one of  the other questions that my constituents asked was

2:16:05what are the sort of safeguards and accountability  measures? And I think uh district attorney Morrisy

2:16:10covered that very well in terms of the misuse  which is a criminal offense, possible jail time,

2:16:16loss of pension. I think that that answers my  question on that. Now, as for the questions

2:16:24that I don't yet have answers to, and this is  to to you, Chief, thank you very much. Um Mr.

2:16:31Ross gave us a rundown on different studies  out there. And much like in most industries,

2:16:36you everything from nutritional things sometimes,  you know, you'll have a study, but it's, you know,

2:16:41sponsored by Nestle or whatever, you always kind  of have to follow the money. Um, Mr. Ross reported

2:16:47that a number of the studies out there were sort  of funded by Flock or folks with Flock interest.

2:16:53Uh so it's a lot of my constituents were asking  you know do we have a way of knowing like what

2:16:58kind of positive impact that we're having a  way to quantify it. I think people appreciate

2:17:02the anecdotals on both sides. There's definitely  been sort of anecdotals of how abuse could happen.

2:17:07There's been anecdotals on how it can help us.  Um my question is do Quinsey Police Department

2:17:14have any mechanism or level of reporting on how  many of what type of cases it's helped with where

2:17:22otherwise we might not have been able to resolve?  Yeah, thanks for the question counselor. So,

2:17:29do we have, you know, there's the saying that you  don't need to be a seismologist to recognize an

2:17:35earthquake, you know, but I do agree it helps to  have the RTER scale sometime. I know there has

2:17:40been some studies. I know Dr. Robin Engel at  Ohio State is looking to see if there is uh a

2:17:46discernable difference in communities that utilize  ALPR if they have lower crime rates. But I can

2:17:52tell you it's working in Quinsey. I mean, these  aren't these aren't anecdotes. These are actual

2:17:58people, victims, survivors. We had uh commercial  breaks, home invasion with a firearm, burglaries,

2:18:04uh sexual assaults, uh kidnapping, um a homicide  that the DA uh actually two homicides, um one down

2:18:13in Germantown that we use this technology  for, one at the Elevation Apartments that

2:18:17uh the district attorney spoke of that Flock was  instrumental. uh shootings, um another kidnapping,

2:18:24sexual assault. Um we're using this technology and  it's working for us. So again, I can't quantify

2:18:32the number. Um we're working on a new records  management system right now. So there is some

2:18:37talk in that if we could do um the the the system  we have right now is uh we got it right after

2:18:44I got on. So it's probably about 20 27 28 years  old and it really doesn't have the analytics. Um,

2:18:49so I'm hoping that in our new software we  can start tracking these things. Okay. Um,

2:18:56the other question that my constituents reached  out to me on is uh to try to get an understanding

2:19:02of the quantity and and um we'll say resolution of  cameras that we have within our community. We have

2:19:10a distinct honor of being among the top or if not  the top in Massachusetts. Uh and I'm just curious

2:19:16uh what design strategy went into that deployment  which led to the number of cameras that we have.

2:19:24I know um all of us were encouraged to you know  meet with you you guys individually to ask some

2:19:29questions and in that conversation there was  one thing that stuck in my brain which is so for

2:19:35example you know Furnusbrook Parkway as you get to  the expressway you really have to have multiple in

2:19:41order to know which direction they took once  getting on the rotary or roundabout depending

2:19:45upon where you're from. Um, so I can understand  things like that, but is there any additional

2:19:49information you might be able to provide that  kind of can help the public understand the how

2:19:55many why we have as many cameras as we have  and where we go about putting them? Yeah. So,

2:20:00there's been a lot of misinformation out there  uh specifically revolving around this technology.

2:20:04We do not put them in neighborhoods. They're  on main roads in the city, mainly points of

2:20:10ingress and egress of the city. So, we  see vehicles come and go. When you see

2:20:14uh Detective Lieutenant O'Donnu's car that I put  up there, that was two in a period of two hours,

2:20:20it captured his his vehicle uh twice. I don't  know where else he went. I mean, he we he was

2:20:27obviously in the city for a while, but in 2  hours, he only popped uh by two cameras. So,

2:20:32we're not tracking him. And you know, the  idea that this is somehow surveillance,

2:20:37you know, I pulled up the numbers as I was  sitting here. Uh in the past 30 days, 689,431

2:20:45um plates uh vehicles were captured in the  city. We only searched 76 times. 99.99% of

2:20:53the plates that are captured and the vehicles  are captured are never looked at. They're never

2:20:57looked at. They're permanently deleted within  30 days and it's soon going to be 14 days.

2:21:02Um so you know the the we have to understand that  the city of Quinsey is about 26 square miles um

2:21:11226 miles of roads and 103,000 people. So you know  40 48 49 uh flock cameras strategically placed at

2:21:21points of ingress and egress. And I'm I'm aware of  the Commonwealth versus McCarthy um case in those

2:21:27four cameras. The reason that's significant,  they were on the Tobin and the I'm sorry,

2:21:31on the on the Bourne and the Sagamore Bridge. So,  the argument was they're catching you couldn't

2:21:35basically get on and off the Cape without the  state police knowing it. So, that was really when

2:21:40people say four cameras and we have 49. That's  where that came from. Um, so again, there's a lot

2:21:45of misinformation. I'm happy to to kind of clear  some things up, but to to answer your question,

2:21:50it's really just how we sort of strategically  place them. And they're not in neighborhoods,

2:21:54like I said. They're on main roads basically.  if uh if you can't park on it during a blizzard,

2:21:59that's a road it's on that they're on. Okay.  And I'm going to ask the same question to some

2:22:05other folks, but from your perspective uh as the  chief of police and with your legal background,

2:22:11um with with respect to the mosaic as described  in versus McCarthy, um at what point in time do

2:22:20you think it things change from an observation to  a search? like in your in your view like how how

2:22:27is how does the search is when we actually put  in either a vehicle description that's wanted

2:22:33uh for a crime uh you know either the make a model  sometimes you don't have a plate sometimes you

2:22:37have a partial plate so that's when it's actually  searched then it becomes a public record and it's

2:22:42auditable okay but the rest of them like I said  99.99% of the time we are not surveilling people

2:22:49we're not trying to find out you know the idea  that we have them you know pointed playgrounds.

2:22:55I've heard that. Uh it's just it's preposterous.  Um you know, we don't have them pointed at at

2:23:01uh John Adams uh cemetery. That's it's they're  on main roads in the city to catch uh to capture

2:23:09vehicle plates and identification. And like I  said, the vast majority of them are never looked

2:23:14at. So, you know, I disagree respectfully with the  with the term surveillance that uh some of my uh

2:23:20fellow panelists have spoken of tonight. I I I I  don't um I don't see it as surveillance. Okay. Uh

2:23:26are there any other things that you listen to from  some of the other testimonies that you're you feel

2:23:31inclined to like maybe try to put expand upon or  cl clarify? Just give you an opportunity. Yeah.

2:23:35I mean, I' I've I've I've heard a lot. Uh like I  said, you know, John Adams was brought up. John

2:23:42Adams famously said, "Facts are stubborn things."  The facts are we're not surveilling the citizens

2:23:46of Quinsey. The facts are we use this technology  incredibly judiciously. The facts are 99.99% of

2:23:54the plates captured are never looked at, never  searched. We're not surveilling people. We're

2:23:59using this tool to help our investigators solve  crimes. Everything from motor vehicle hit and

2:24:04runs. Um we were able to uh find somebody who  um had made some concerning statements to his

2:24:11uh spouse and we were able to use the technology  to find him and get him help. Um you know, we

2:24:15found missing persons. We've interrupted uh armed  robberies with this technology. uh we're finding

2:24:21stolen cars. It's incredibly beneficial that our  detectives and investigators can get uh answers in

2:24:27minutes as opposed to days. And I understand the  old school gum shoe way of you know sitting there

2:24:33for hours and hours and and looking at uh you know  a day's worth of video trying to find a vehicle.

2:24:39Um can we do that? Sure. Uh when I started we show  my age uh 28 years ago we were handwriting reports

2:24:48and we would take them press hard. you're making  four copies and put them in a file cabinet and

2:24:52that was secure. Now we have uh online CAD records  management system that also goes to the plow to

2:24:58the cloud. It's technology that could be hacked  into. You know, we we do our best to try and

2:25:03protect our data. Um but you know, unfortunately  in the world we live in pretty much anything can

2:25:08be hacked. So, um you know, we we we do our best  to secure things, but I don't want to go back to

2:25:14the days of handwriting reports and put them in a  file cabinet in the basement either. Uh so, We we

2:25:19put some safeguards. We put some um some guard  rails around this technology and I believe that

2:25:24we're using it incredibly responsibly. We're going  to continue to listen to people as we just did you

2:25:29know in the past two weeks reducing our retention  period and um you know there's there's a lot of

2:25:35good points. I'm not trying to minimize anybody's  uh opinion specifically, but the bottom line is

2:25:40the fact is we are not surveilling the citizens of  Quinsey. We are using this technology incredibly

2:25:47judiciously and uh and we are solving crimes with  it. Okay. Thank you, Chief. And and thank you

2:25:52for the time that you allotted me over the past  couple of weeks of I think I've had a couple of

2:25:57visits with you and your team just to get my head  around things and ask my questions. So, I really

2:26:01appreciate that. Um this next question, if you'd  indulge me for another couple more questions,

2:26:06if that's okay. Um this next question is actually  for the gentleman from the ACLU, if that's okay.

2:26:21So, thank you very much uh earlier for your uh  testimony. It's been very helpful and informative.

2:26:27The one thing I'm trying to get my head around  after looking through the the different case

2:26:32law and the different perspectives and  articles that I've read on this matter

2:26:36um is what what's the dividing line between  um a data set being like an observation that

2:26:45an officer could make on the side of a road or a  set of officers versus like this mosaic concept

2:26:50this this picture of someone's life and becoming  a search and thus subject to warrant. H how do

2:26:56you view that or or would you be the right person  to ask about that? Sure. Um it's a great question

2:27:01and like I said it's one that courts are grappling  with. So I wouldn't want you all on the council

2:27:05leaving with the perspective that every single  query of flocks database is a search or that

2:27:10none of the searches of flocks database constitute  constitutional searches. It depends on the facts

2:27:17of the case. It depends on how many cameras are  being queried. Uh, and that's a core component of

2:27:22what was missing from the record in Commonwealth  v. McCarthy. The defense attorney at the trial

2:27:27level only preserved for the record the use of  four license plate reader cameras on a couple of

2:27:32bridges. And what they likely should have done is  preserve for the record the full scope of license

2:27:38plate readers queried with that search. And that  might have resulted um in a different outcome.

2:27:43Uh I think the other analogy that I' I'd raise for  you on this point is that when we look at searches

2:27:48in other contexts like a search of a vehicle for  example, the scope of the search is not only any

2:27:54evidence found from that search. The scope of  the search is every place that law enforcement

2:28:00uh look through. So for example, with a search  of a vehicle, the scope of the search is that

2:28:04entire vehicle. It's not only uh the contents  within that vehicle that may suggest some kind

2:28:10of criminal activity. And that analogy is directly  applicable to flock cameras too because the scope

2:28:16of the search is not only the cameras that show  that a certain person passed by them. The scope

2:28:22of the search is the full network of cameras  being queried which in many cases can be tens

2:28:27of thousands especially if we're talking about  uh flocks nationwide network and queries into

2:28:31that database. Right? when I started to think  through um both from an assembled set of data

2:28:37or individual pieces of data I tried to analogize  it to some stuff that I worked with in the past.

2:28:42So in previous career broadband industry telephone  provider I would often get contacted by whether it

2:28:49was the state police treasury department even  uh looking for call detail records looking for

2:28:54CD like CDRs looking for envelope information of  text messages looking for all this data sets and I

2:29:00often viewed it as um the envelope information for  example of an email is not necessarily a search

2:29:07uh but the content of course is so there's a  difference between that type of metadata versus

2:29:12content intercept. Um, and I would get those as  well, those requests. Um, so I try I started to

2:29:18try to draw a parallel or an analog if you will,  between this information and that information.

2:29:23And then under what circumstances can you search  for those things and you know whether you need a

2:29:28administrative subpoena, a warrant, um, or whether  it can be provided from an exigent circumstance

2:29:35request. Um and so do you have any thoughts on  how this data either uh in individual records,

2:29:43small slices or in larger data sets would  fit into any of those paradigms? Um I mean

2:29:49I I think your point gets to the fact that there  are a number of surveillance systems that can be

2:29:54queried in concert with flock cameras. Uh and  I think that's really where the future of this

2:29:59kind of policing technology is headed. Uh, for  example, companies like Flock, Axon, and Motorola,

2:30:04they are advertising and marketing what are called  real-time crime centers, which aggregate data from

2:30:09license plate readers, from other sorts of CCTV  cameras that may be enabled with AI analytics,

2:30:16um, to identify people or objects within them. Um,  and these real-time crime centers also aggregate

2:30:21data from other sources. So uh those kinds of  technologies will end up guiding courts decisions

2:30:28uh with respect to the aggregation of this data,  the centralization of this data which even further

2:30:33opens the door for potential abuse. Um when you  have that kind of centralization okay one final

2:30:38question then I'll let my colleagues jump in.  I apologize for taking so much time. Um last

2:30:42question that I have and I may come back later  if there's time. um do you from your um advocacy,

2:30:50do you have a sense for when our state legislature  might take this up? Because I feel like what we're

2:30:54what's happening is and it's not uncommon and one  of the speakers earlier addressed this which is

2:30:59often times there's emerging technologies  but then of course the governance of such

2:31:04technologies follows and that's natural because  you know as legislators both local and and and

2:31:09national we're not building things right or we're  not creating things. Uh, so we're always playing

2:31:15catch-up. Have you had any engagements? I mean, I  have, but I didn't want to lead the witness. Um,

2:31:21when they might take this up and because this  is pro that's probably where it should go,

2:31:25but in the meantime, us local folks are going  to have to figure it out until then. So,

2:31:28any thoughts? We completely agree. The state  legislature should take this up. We've been

2:31:32asking them to for over 10 years now. We supported  legislation this past session, H3755. We aim to

2:31:40support stronger legislation um now that we've  heard such immense push back from Massachusetts

2:31:45residents to this technology. So it's absolutely  my hope that in the next legislative session in

2:31:50the 2728 legislative session that state lawmakers  will take this up, but it remains to be seen what

2:31:55those regulations would look like. Okay. Thank you  very much. That's all I have for now. Thank you,

2:32:02Councelor McKe. Thank you so much. Um,  I just want to start off saying that I

2:32:10so appreciate everyone coming out, everyone  taking the time to speak. Um, this is such a

2:32:15great demonstration of democracy. Um, people have  done so much research and are so thoughtful. Um,

2:32:23I also really want to appreciate um the police  chief and and members of the police department.

2:32:30They also uh several of us um spent three hours  there last uh Thursday and it was a really helpful

2:32:41thing to be able to talk with you and um it  was so gratifying to to hear that you know

2:32:49after you went to the library event um that you  then responded with, hey, I think there are some

2:32:56things we should we should look into more closely  And I just I really appreciate that responsiveness

2:33:03um from city government departments and I want  to call that out and and say thank you for that.

2:33:08Um I do have some questions for people. Um um  maybe uh Oh yes, I can start with you. Yeah,

2:33:19sure. Y um so I had some questions from uh  folks. We can just kind of go through them.

2:33:26Someone emailed saying, "Are any of these cameras  linked with city other city cameras or you know

2:33:35private uh cameras at all or are they just are you  just when you do a search are you just querying

2:33:41the specific flock cameras?" I'm sorry. So the  question is are we sharing or or do other people

2:33:49have access to our cameras or just within Quinsey?  Um, are any other cameras like city cameras,

2:33:57traffic cameras or whatever? I know you can look  at those two, but are they sort of connected to so

2:34:05that when you search for flock, you've got the  other city cameras or separate camera system?

2:34:10Separate. Okay. Yeah. Um I wanted to um um if you  had a slide uh the first ex explanation um for the

2:34:24reasons given I just wanted to look back at that  at with the um you looking for the drop the one

2:34:35with the drop down drop down. Yeah the drop down.  Yeah. So that's the that's one of them. So there's

2:34:41two drop- down menus. So there's the offense  and then the reason for the search. Okay. So

2:34:47the I guess it's the reason for the search. That  one there. Yes. Okay. Investigation of criminal

2:34:54offenses with reasonable suspicion that a criminal  offense was committed. Um so there's there's more

2:35:01to it. That's just a screenshot of Yes, I know  there's other ones. Okay. I just want that seemed

2:35:07sort of vague to me like the investigation.  So, but all of these fields are required. So,

2:35:13it would have to say the type of offense and  then of course the type of case number. And we

2:35:19talked a little bit on Thursday, but maybe you can  just tell everyone else. Um, I had asked about,

2:35:26you know, case numbers, if there's any way in  the system to tie that case number that someone

2:35:32puts in to an actual case number. Um and and some  of the oversight that to that we now require that

2:35:41you have to Yeah. So you see with the red asterric  everything with a red asterric is now a required

2:35:46um uh search criteria. So everything will  have a legit uh um case number. It's just

2:35:52more professional. And I know um when you spoke  about uh some what people would write in there,

2:35:56the misconnection female, uh that was a drug  investigation um where they basically were

2:36:02waiting for the buyer who was a female buyer  and they basically missed her. So that's why

2:36:06they put that in there. That wasn't like stalking  a woman. And then the jizz, believe it or not,

2:36:10was uh a person's nickname and that's why that  was there. It's not the most flattering nickname,

2:36:16but that was a nickname. What about cream? Oh,  I'm sorry. So that's why we put the drop down

2:36:21menu to kind of eliminate that, clean it up and  make it more professional. Uh especially on the

2:36:25audit sheets and those are all posted. All our  audit sheets are now posted on our transparency

2:36:29portal as well. And everything has a case number  now. That's great. And that was that when was

2:36:36that changed? Um August 6th we uh we implemented  that. Um and we've been again we've been working

2:36:43with with Flock to to update this and I know there  was some conversations about you know with Boston

2:36:49we control um our our system administrator uh  Lieutenant Jamie Green and and Joe Pepjonovich our

2:36:56IT uh chief they set the parameters. So I think  what happened in Boston when they said they were

2:37:02sharing somebody didn't set it properly. I think  it might have been human error maybe from what I'm

2:37:07hearing on on Boston's side. Okay. Um, human error  from Boston or human error from Flock. Um, hearing

2:37:16from Boston thatoston. So, basically we could I  went into the system today. Uh, I think I've been

2:37:22talking more to representatives from Flock than  I have uh my family. Uh, we were on a Zoom call

2:37:27today and they were showing me just so I could  speak somewhat intelligently tonight for you how

2:37:32we control our own settings in the the software.  Um, and Flock can't go in and activate them or

2:37:38turn them on. So, if somebody uh accidentally went  in our system, one of our two administrators, and

2:37:43turned that uh those permissions on, that would  be a a Quinsey police era, not a flock error.

2:37:50Okay. Um so, it sounds like some of the reasons  given in the past um were nicknames or something,

2:37:59but some of them also see like I am cool um were  just sort of silly. So, I think I think these are

2:38:07good changes that were were put in. Um, I guess  I wanted to just say that while the the case

2:38:17number is good to have, it sounded like there's  no mechanism to determine that the case number is

2:38:23actually a real case number or to check that it's  like there, but that comes in as it was explained

2:38:31um that there will be um a monthly oversight. So  let me just summarize what I think I understood

2:38:39from um Thursday was that um flock itself has kind  of flags uh red flags. If someone is searching a

2:38:49car multiple times that could be a problem for  example in some cases in other places that have

2:38:56been stalking. Um, so they'll have some cases that  it would be flagged, and then a captain would look

2:39:04at all of those every month, ask um the relevant  person about what that was, and then report to

2:39:12you on what they found. And that's that's how you  would deal with something like that. So there is

2:39:19a case number required, but the the real oversight  is maybe coming from both Flocks flagging and then

2:39:27also your delving into these red flags. Yeah.  So there's really there's really two audits

2:39:32with Flock's new um automatic uh auditing system.  So I asked them today um some of the things that

2:39:39would flag uh on Flock's audit that would report  to us that this might be suspicious and you want

2:39:44to look into it. So some things might be uh an  officer running uh the same plate multiple times

2:39:49um instead of because if you're looking for  somebody, you just enter it into a hit list. So

2:39:54the same officer running the same plate multiple  times could um could run it the same plate over

2:39:59a 30-day period, past a 30-day period. So, I  ran a plate today, but I also ran it, you know,

2:40:06um 35 days ago that it might add some uh that  would flag uh searching outside cameras only,

2:40:13not our own internal network. So, I was saying  we're we're we're kind of selfish. We don't allow

2:40:18anybody to see our cameras, but we'll look at  other people's cameras if they allow us to. Um,

2:40:22and so, um, somebody is just looking at,  say, I don't know where we have access, uh,

2:40:28some other community that gives us access, they're  just searching that camera, that would flag,

2:40:33um, the same plate with different case numbers,  would flag, um, and, um, there's a a few other

2:40:38things. So, we would get flagged by flock um  to have Captain uh, Miller, who's in charge

2:40:43of all detectives, go through it. Um, and he  we've had some flags. He brings the officer or

2:40:50investigator in. They're able to explain it to  his satisfaction. Then we move on. But he also

2:40:55does his own I mean he's in charge of all the  detectives. It's pretty much only detectives

2:40:59that have access to the system. So he's going to  know if that case if that officer is not working

2:41:04on that case. So where we only have, you know, 70s  something of them um in the past 30 days and that

2:41:09number is even going to go down now that we're  moving to a 14-day retention period. Um so he's

2:41:14able to look at it. That's great. I I appreciate  those changes very much. Um I wanted to ask in

2:41:21um I don't know if it was out yesterday, but a  recent uh globe kind of overview of how these

2:41:27things work at the very end it said in July Salem  announced it was ending its flock contract citing

2:41:33data security concerns um blah blah blah. But um  Salem isn't giving up on license plate readers. It

2:41:40plans to replace flock with a system they say  will offer greater local control of data. So,

2:41:47do you know what they're going to be doing there?  Which which department was that? Salem. I'm sorry,

2:41:54I'm having trouble. Oh, Salem. Salem. Salem. Yeah,  I did uh I did speak to the chief out there. Um

2:42:00you know, a lot of municipalities are cancelling  um contracts with with flock. Um but they're not

2:42:07giving up on ALPR technology. Um so that's that's  the thing. You know, people are saying, "Oh, they

2:42:13get the flock out, get rid of flock, but they're  replacing it with another technology." And I know

2:42:17Salem did that. Um, I'm not sure which system  he used. I know there's uh like an access system

2:42:22that ties into Genitech. I've actually spoken to  councelor Hubley about that. Um, but there's a

2:42:26lot of different options out there. And again, I'm  not standing up here as a flock apologist. I I I

2:42:31I'm a firm believer in the technology. I inherited  Flock. I I it was here when I when I uh took over

2:42:37the chief's job in 2023. I saw how valuable it  was and I I do take responsibility for expanding

2:42:44the program and putting them in some areas where  we had some crime that we didn't have a camera in

2:42:49the area. So when we had a little extra money,  we got some grant money. We put uh some cameras

2:42:53in again strategically around the city, but um  mostly at points of ingress and egress. I think

2:43:00um probably doesn't make sense to talk about it  tonight, but maybe at a future time we should

2:43:05look into the money side of Flock because I I've  had a lot of comments and questions from people

2:43:11about how we paid for it, how much it costs, the  procurement process. Um but I wanted to um if you

2:43:18don't mind, I'll I'll um ask Gideon Epstein to  come up. Um, and I wanted to um I wanted to ask,

2:43:32we've heard a lot of people say, "Oh, you know,  we have this technology in our pockets um that

2:43:37just tracks us everywhere. Um, can you just very  briefly go through how cell phones are different

2:43:45from flock?" It's a great question. So, like you  point out, law enforcement with a warrant in hand,

2:43:52they can access people's cell phone location  information, CSLI, it's the kind of data that

2:43:58the Supreme Court contemplated in the Carpenter  case in 2018 when they said for law enforcement to

2:44:04access uh people's historical location information  derived from their cell site location information,

2:44:10uh law enforcement needs to get a warrant first.  And that's fundamentally how license plate readers

2:44:16uh differ. um from this kind of collection of  CSLI data. Um and our team firmly believes that

2:44:24uh a warrant requirement um enacted via state  law would be the right thing. Um for example,

2:44:30a state legislature could require that any  additions to hot lists compared against

2:44:35license plate reader data uh that that they obtain  a warrant before adding people to a hot list. And

2:44:41with a system like that, coupled with an extremely  short data retention period for any uh any data on

2:44:47people who are not on that hot list, you could  theoretically have a license plate reader system

2:44:52that doesn't act like these flock cameras  do as drag net surveillance. But right now,

2:44:56that's all a hypothetical because there are none  of those state guardrails in place. Okay. Thank

2:45:02you. Um so I guess then a sort of hypothetical  question if as um Mr. Fitz Morris said there

2:45:13he he he was the one who worked at a biotech  company and um said that it was you know nothing

2:45:18was wireless and everything was very local. Um, I  guess I'm wondering if Quinzy somehow had a system

2:45:29like that, um, with 49 cameras, would the legal  issues be any different? I know the technology,

2:45:39you know, there maybe would be fewer  risks for security breaches, but um,

2:45:45would those would would the ACLU, do you think,  still have those similar concerns? Yeah. So,

2:45:52if I understand your question correctly, if the  Quinsey Police Department were to contract with a

2:45:57different license plate reader vendor, there may  be some marginal benefits, but as a whole, our

2:46:02team would still have a lot of serious concerns  with this technology because fundamentally, you

2:46:06wouldn't be shifting uh what the technology does.  It would still be location tracking technology,

2:46:11tracking every single driver on roadways. So,  that would give our team concerns regardless. Um,

2:46:16with that said, we think Flock is in particular a  very bad actor um that they're not a reliable law

2:46:22enforcement um partner. So, uh, yeah, there might  be some marginal benefit from a different vendor,

2:46:27but as a whole, our team would absolutely  still have concerns and there would would

2:46:31absolutely still be legal issues implicated.  I think they might differ in the sense that

2:46:35uh with with some of these other systems, you may  not be able to query external law enforcement's

2:46:40data that might affect the scope of searches  that courts then are subsequently analyzing.

2:46:45Um, so that might be how it it differs  from a legal standpoint. Okay. Um,

2:46:53I just now forgot what I was going to say. Um,

2:47:01okay. So, there there might  be sort of better systems,

2:47:04but all of these systems we've  heard are concerning. Um, let's see.

2:47:21Oh, thank you. So, maybe that's it for now.  Thank you. I've just got questions all over

2:47:26the place. Um, Chief, could I ask you to come back  up again? I just realized that one of my questions

2:47:32is in I'll try to move on. Um, so some people have  talked about body cams for police officers. I've

2:47:38heard a number of people reach out to me about  that. Yeah. Um, what do you say to that? Like

2:47:44that there's, you know, the police are watching  residents but are not allowing residents to kind

2:47:51of oversee what they're doing. Yeah. And, uh,  you know, we just had contract negotiations. That

2:47:57was one of the things that, uh, we were asking  for and, uh, ultimately um, it just didn't uh,

2:48:03it didn't fly. Um, you know, I've been I'm a  big uh, uh, proponent of them. I think that

2:48:09they show that our officers are doing a fantastic  job. I mean, um, you know, and and you know, but

2:48:16I'll tell you that in Quinsey, we're we're very  lucky. We have, um, very low, uh, use of force,

2:48:23very low injuries as a result of use of force. I  know I spoke at that during the budget hearing.

2:48:27Um, you know, I get far more um letters of of uh  commenation about the things that our officers

2:48:33are doing than I do complaints. But when we do  get complaints, we take them very seriously. Uh,

2:48:38Lieutenant Mike Duran is our professional  standards um lieutenant. You know, we hold people

2:48:43accountable. We hold them to a high standard.  Um, you know, and when people step out of line,

2:48:49we have no issues uh retraining them. We have uh  um uh suspended people and we've cut ties with

2:48:56people, too. So, I would be um a proponent of body  cameras. I know it's a it's a huge expense. Um but

2:49:04uh I would have no problem getting them. It's  more of a union issue, unfortunately. There's a

2:49:10bit of a parallel there. So, you know, it's a good  force. So, you know, this the problems are small,

2:49:16but um I think the I think the people would also  say that about, you know, the crime rate maybe

2:49:22in Quinzy and um maybe that cameras, you know,  they're sort of like the the police union, maybe

2:49:29like we're doing okay without them, but that's  just what popped in. Yeah. No, I would I would

2:49:34welcome them. Yeah. Um I'm also just curious about  whether you keep any data on the demographics of

2:49:44uh the people the searches that you do do like are  we somehow doing more searches on certain types of

2:49:54people or anything like that? Is there any data?  No, I mean it's it's I'm sure we could we could

2:50:01uh pull up um you know when an arrest  was made um some demographics there,

2:50:06but essentially we're looking for vehicles. That's  it. Um you know there's talk that there's facial

2:50:11recognition in these cameras. There's not um  it's capturing a picture of a vehicle. It's

2:50:15not capturing pictures of people. There is no  facial recognition in the ALPR cameras. Um you

2:50:21know we're not we're not looking at people. We're  looking at vehicles. So, um Okay, that's it. Um

2:50:33and do you have any data or experiences on the  misreads? So, we've heard about some of the

2:50:40um mistakes that can happen. Yeah. Yeah. And it  it it's in our policy, too, that you you don't

2:50:46rely just on the ALPR hit. And as I said, you  know, that was a a clear uh day. um sometimes

2:50:52in inclement weather or at night you don't get as  clear a picture so it takes a lot more work but

2:50:57we don't uh yeah there's there's been cases where  you know the maybe it was New Hampshire 123 ABC

2:51:04and it popped up at a Massachusetts uh alert. Um,  so we don't we haven't had any issues where uh an

2:51:12officer has stopped the wrong vehicle based on  uh just the ALPR because that's not the primary

2:51:18um justification. They would have to do a little  more research, make sure the vehicle is still

2:51:24wanted. They confirm the plate. They don't just go  off of an ALPR. Okay. Um we spoke uh when we spoke

2:51:33on Thursday I raised the possibility of um kind of  an advisory board of residents. Um can you can you

2:51:43talk about that uh your openness or whatever to  that um here a little bit? Yeah, as I told you,

2:51:51I I um I welcome an opportunity to talk to anybody  about this. So, I'd sit down and and talk to

2:51:57anybody. If there's people in the community that  are experts, I'm more than welcome to sit down.

2:52:01My my daughter Ansley reminds me I make four  mistakes before breakfast every day. Um, and

2:52:06uh so I um I have no problem listening to people  who are a lot smarter than me. Uh in terms of like

2:52:13an actual board, I think that would be under the  purview of the mayor to um work on creating that.

2:52:18But if you wanted to set something up and we  could sit down and talk to people who who know

2:52:22more about it and I'll bring in my team and um so  I think as you've seen um we're not afraid to make

2:52:29changes. Um you know when we realize we um when  we realize we we we have some you know identified

2:52:37risks we change and we make uh add safeguards.  I I'm I I think that's really fantastic and that

2:52:45really fosters trust in the in the police  department here. I think so. And I think a

2:52:52lot of what I'm hearing is people are concerned,  very very concerned as you've heard tonight. Um

2:52:58I'm not hearing so much concern about the police  force, but just other entities accessing data. Um

2:53:08and we do live in this current uh world where you  know laws are not always the constitution is not

2:53:17always prioritized. So um anyway thank you very  much for for your openness. Pleasure. Thank you.

2:53:29Thank you councelor McKe. Any  other counselors? Councelor Ash,

2:53:33did you wanna Hold on just one second

2:53:39through you, Mr. Chair. Um, actually, uh, Mr.  Ross, if I could just ask you one quick question.

2:53:48I believe you said there was five or so studies  and there was one that you would consider robust,

2:53:53rigorous. Yeah. Um, I don't think I got the name  of that study. If you if you know it. If not,

2:53:57I can get it after. I believe it's a  gentleman Mortgos and Adams, Ian Adams,

2:54:03two famous criminologists, a fairly rigorous  study. I think largely they found that

2:54:08um Flock was effective at deterring and and um  solving uh motor vehicle theft and arrests for

2:54:17motor vehicle theft, property crimes. I think the  decrease this is they looked nationwide. I think

2:54:22the decrease in motor vehicle theft was only about  10% and I think property crime is like around 5%.

2:54:28So fairly modestly sized. Um to my knowledge, I  think that there's no rigorous studies that have

2:54:34shown that it's um decreased violent incidents  or violent crime or arrests of violent crime on

2:54:41on average. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence.  Thanks. I just wanted to see if I could get the

2:54:46name of that. So I appreciate it. Thank you. No  problem. Um Chief, I did have some some questions.

2:54:51Um I know we had a great meeting on Friday. Um, I  actually did not have time um in my own schedule,

2:54:57not not yours. You were very gracious and open  with your time as always, but um due to my own

2:55:02schedule, I didn't um I wasn't able to stick  around for the the actual the search that we

2:55:08were going to that I think that you offered to to  everybody um that came in to meet with you. So,

2:55:13I wanted to ask some questions about that if  that was possible. That may be helpful to if we

2:55:18could pull up. Um was this on the screen? Yeah.  Which one would you like? Oh, I'm sorry, Chief.

2:55:24um your flock search screen uh of the vehicle  with the actual picture of the car. Um yeah,

2:55:30we'll just start at the beginning. So I think the  first the the car is the end in my packet. Okay.

2:55:38Um so with respect to I know the the red asterisks  are fields that have to be filled out. Um,

2:55:45with respect to offense type and say reason,  is there any kind of a tree or a chart to make

2:55:58sure that those two fields have to agree with each  other? So, I'll give you an example. If somebody

2:56:05fills if if one of the officers checks the box  for arson but then say the reason is investigation

2:56:17um with respect to human trafficking  you know is that still a searchable

2:56:23um if those fields al together is that still  a search that would go through would it bounce

2:56:29back because you know I would if somebody  is investigating an offense type of arson

2:56:35there really wouldn't be much um unless of course  extenduating circumstances which I'm sure is

2:56:41not an anomaly here, but with respect to a human  trafficking investigation, they probably wouldn't

2:56:46select arson as the offense type, right? No, I get  what you're saying and I I think that's something

2:56:51that would come up during the during the audit  with uh with um the detective captain. Uh he would

2:56:56notice that and it could just be human error that  happens. You know, when drop down menus, you think

2:57:00you're clicking one, you hit the other one and  you know, we're all human. We make mistakes. So,

2:57:04I think that would come up during the during the  monthly audit with uh with Captain Miller. Um,

2:57:09and the case number, that number, you know,  my question actually when we met was whether

2:57:16that had to correlate to say a criminal number. So  like Quinsey district 26 CR whatever it may be but

2:57:23that number is internal for investigative purposes  obviously because not every investigation becomes

2:57:30um or leads to charges that are actually brought  by the department or the commonwealth. But th

2:57:36those case numbers, they don't necessarily have  to be open investigations or right. So you you

2:57:46would put in an open investigation, but the the  system does not check it in the background to

2:57:53make sure that that investigation correlates to an  actual open incident. Uh so no. So uh every time

2:58:02we enter any type of call into our computerated  dispatch uh system, it generates autogenerates

2:58:08that case number. So a detective and investigator  that was working uh you know a certain incident

2:58:14robbery would put in the case number that of the  robbery. Um but if it's an open investigation, so

2:58:19sometimes like our our drug control unit might be  uh looking at something, they might be, you know,

2:58:25uh watching a target location and they haven't  generated a case number yet. Um, so that was one

2:58:31issue that we're we're trying to address that now,  um, we're going to have them basically come up,

2:58:37make a case number, they could just put it in  under drug investigation and then later on put

2:58:42in the target location because a lot of that thing  it's it's clandestine until they actually make the

2:58:46arrest, if that makes sense. I don't know if No,  it does. It's um uh it's that's sort of where it

2:58:53gets a little tricky uh with the drug control  unit. They don't want to enter a call for, you

2:58:57know, whatever uh main some house on Main Street  or um and then possibly blow their investigation

2:59:06because it's going to show up on the journal.  Leave Main Street out of this. I'm sorry. Said

2:59:12leave Main Street. Main Street USA, not Quincy  Point. Um, my next question, Chief, um, and I

2:59:18think this might get to kind of the the crux and  and overarching a theme of all the questions that

2:59:24we've received and all of the people that we've  talked to and a number of the people um that spoke

2:59:28today is um the that reason under the reason box  or or search field there. Um, the first one reads

2:59:38investigation of criminal offense with reasonable  suspicion that a criminal offense was committed.

2:59:44You know, determining the reasonability, I think,  goes to the issue that people have with ALPRs in

2:59:51general, because usually you would, if it was  a search warrant, of course, you would go to a

2:59:55judge who would determine whether to issue that  warrant and whether that warrant was reasonable,

3:00:01uh, or whether that that set of facts, under  those set of facts, um, you know, in in lights

3:00:07most favorable to the Commonwealth, if that set  of facts could lead to a reasonable suspicion,

3:00:12a criminal offense, was committed. Now, I know  departmentwise you've got 47 or 48 officers

3:00:19um with access to the system and of course given  their trajectory, their training, their expertise,

3:00:28their skill, they likely know what that reasonable  sus what amounts to reasonable suspicion. But

3:00:36outside of uh an audit internally, how do we  how do we know that? I don't know if we I guess

3:00:43that's kind of the that's the overarching issue  or concern, right? Um and I guess with respect

3:00:50to different offenses, there could potentially  be different levels of uh reasonable suspicion.

3:00:57Yeah. So, what it really comes down to is there  a legitimate law enforcement reason to conduct

3:01:02uh the search of our system for a specific  vehicle? That's what it comes down to. So,

3:01:07you know, I'm not naive. I understand that  what happens in other parts of the country

3:01:11and in other communities where officers have  misused this technology reflects on all of us,

3:01:16right? Uh you know, what happens in Minneapolis  uh dictates how people feel about the police in

3:01:21Quinsey. I I understand that. And uh the bottom  line is in our new policy uh that we adopted

3:01:27with guidance from the Mass Major City Chiefs  Association, basically the last two pages of our

3:01:32new policy um spells out the potential crimes that  you could be you can can and would be charged with

3:01:39if you did use this technology inappropriately.  So I mean that's it's it's a pretty uh compelling

3:01:45statement. um you know, in terms of of offices,  if you're going to misuse this technology,

3:01:51you're going to be discovered um and you're you're  risking your career and your pension. And I just

3:01:57I don't see uh our people doing it. We've done  an audit back to January uh before we even had

3:02:03the training in March. Uh we didn't find anybody  misusing the technology. We did a spot audit of

3:02:09uh September of 2025. um pulled a few cases um  and we basically found that all the searches made

3:02:17uh were for a legitimate law enforcement purpose.  And I I mean I I believe department-wise in

3:02:24departmentwide that I can't imagine a world in  which certainly the officers that I've trusted

3:02:30um with QPD and that would be the actual case.  But I almost feel bad because then the qu the the

3:02:36questions that I would have had are the questions  that I likely would have had answered had I been

3:02:42able to um stick around on Friday. But um I think  that the with respect to those cases, although

3:02:50they're specific direct questions, they kind of go  to the overarching issue that the public is facing

3:02:56and that we've heard about is there there is a  level of um uh discretion that you're afforded

3:03:04with the utmost precaution. you're each of us is  still afforded some level of discretion and uh we

3:03:11need to weigh kind of that that discretion with  the intended benefits. I know we spoke about a um

3:03:18you know a potential audit. Of course, you can't  really um do a third party audit because they're

3:03:23open criminal cases, which I I didn't even think  of when I asked you that quite frankly. Um but I

3:03:29guess I'll I'll end with a a question which uh we  just we did speak briefly about on uh when I came

3:03:36in to meet with you with these precautions added  in. So, with the closed network, um, with a two

3:03:44week time frame instead of a 30-day time frame,  with all of the the second party authentication,

3:03:51um, all of the kind of answers and the things  that you've you've thought of on on your own as

3:03:57a department, as you know, certainly a department  that prioritizes uh the city, its members,

3:04:03public safety with all of those precautions,  excuse me, added can say, you know, and with

3:04:12other municipalities that are who are rescending  their contracts, you know, if we talked about the

3:04:17example, if Brainree cancels their contract and  somebody goes over the the train tracks, do we

3:04:22still benefit from ours? and are you still getting  that intended benefit given the precautions that

3:04:32you're implementing um due to the public nature  of some of these of some of uh these issues? Yeah,

3:04:39we're still getting the benefit. We're still using  Quinsey cameras to solve Quinsey crimes. Um you

3:04:45know, if one of the things now if a if Brainree is  working on something and they believe the suspect

3:04:51came into Quinsey, um we would work with them.  We work with our partner law enforcement agencies

3:04:56all the time and that this is no different just  because we've restricted and we no longer give

3:05:00anyone else access to our network. Um we'll still  help and work with them and I and I know um they'd

3:05:07work with us too. So if they restricted our access  to their cameras, I know um uh Chief Morag and and

3:05:13um Randolph uh closed his network as well and if  we had an incident where we were tracking somebody

3:05:19to Randolph, our detectives would call over there.  we would put it in writing um and give them what

3:05:23we were working on and I I know they would work  with us just as we would work with them. Thank

3:05:29you. And the hit list is still is still huge. So  uh you know if if we had I mean we had a a stolen

3:05:34car um we get our our um drug control unit. They  drive non-traditional uh police vehicles and they

3:05:41get alerts a lot with these stolen cars. So they  were able to kind of set up on it. Uh and I know

3:05:46I sent uh something to the council. I think it was  back in in June or July. Um they got a hit list on

3:05:51a stolen motor vehicle that came in. Uh they were  able to locate it on Granite Street. They were

3:05:56able to kind of sit on it, wait for the people  who stole the car to come back to the car. And as

3:06:01they did, they observed uh somebody taking a rifle  out of his pants. And they were basically they had

3:06:05masks. Um they had rifles, uh extended magazine,  ammunition, uh clips. Um and they were basically

3:06:12we think either about to do a home invasion or  an armed robbery. So that was a hit list. Vehicle

3:06:17came in, stolen car. there was no pursuit. U there  was some Scottish soccer fans there that were

3:06:22applauding as the police made the arrest, but uh  the tartan army was in Quinsey. Um so it is still

3:06:28beneficial. This Okay. Um no, and we we discussed  a number of um cases that you're at obviously at

3:06:36liberty to discuss because they reached a certain  point and I appreciated all the background.

3:06:40Um it's just um very good presentation, great  meeting and thank you for to everybody that is

3:06:48here to answer the questions. I guess I'll end  with um whose whose um license plate did you say

3:06:55was this on QPD to that's uh Lieutenant Steve  O'Donn put that whole presentation together for

3:07:02me. Ask Lieutenant O'Donn how to get from  Bergen to Hancock Parkway in two minutes

3:07:08and seconds because I would love to know. No,  thank you very much. Thanks, Chief. Thank you.

3:07:18Any other counselors? Councelor  Yuan, hold on one sec.

3:07:25Thank you. Thank you, chair. So first first I  want to thanks everyone coming to the meeting

3:07:33especially residents come up to speak and  it's really showed how democracy works.

3:07:41So, and then I want to thanks to Chief Kennedy,  the QPD and all the guests. Um, my major concern

3:07:49is I think a lot of people also express this  concern from their speech from the email we

3:07:56got is main concern about the what flag company  can do with our data because this technology was

3:08:07developed by by the company. So they know  much better about how how this technology

3:08:17can be used to analyze the data get um search  share and I think we talked about that before

3:08:28and since this company has been reported multiple  times not uh not honest about what they are doing

3:08:41that's so I have this concern so actually my  this question is to Mr. Epstein. Thank you.

3:08:57So,

3:09:02so according to your team research and what  what uh the company can do with those data and

3:09:12uh what they have um done something they didn't  report and so also I know the technology is

3:09:24still developing. So they are they can have a new  feature new function which like law enforcement

3:09:33don't know but once they get a data they can do  different analyze so I just want to know uh want

3:09:40to you share the knowledge about what the company  can do our data and the case they have misused the

3:09:49data. Yeah great question. Um, so I think looking  at the Boston Police Department example, um,

3:09:56I think it it is a fair assessment to say that it  was human error, but I I think uh, our perspective

3:10:01is that it seems likely human error on Flock's  end because the Boston Police Department and other

3:10:07local offici local elected officials had clearly  and un unambiguously indicated to Flock that they

3:10:13did not want Boston's data shared externally.  There was even contract language to that effect

3:10:19um which runs counter to Flock's standard template  contract language granting it the right to share

3:10:25data externally. But Boston's uh lawyers took  note of that and they amended Flock's standard

3:10:31contract language um to hopefully ensure that  Flock would not share their data externally,

3:10:36but it went ahead and did so anyway. And I I think  uh our assessment of of why they did so is because

3:10:43at that time uh all of Flock's new customers were  automatically opted into nationwide data sharing.

3:10:50Um and I think that is true of uh the Quincy  Police Department's experience with Flock at

3:10:55the time it entered a contract with the company.  Um so by default Flock is sharing its customers

3:11:02data externally. I recognize it's now taken some  steps to try to put control over data back in the

3:11:08hands of local police departments. Um, but I would  ask why those safeguards were not implemented from

3:11:13the get-go. And ultimately, it matters a lot what  the default data sharings data sharing uh settings

3:11:19are um that Flock has in place now and and had  in place for many years before this point. Um,

3:11:25and I think separate from automatic data sharing,  there's the ongoing reality, even with this quote

3:11:31unquote closed off system, that Flock could  receive a subpoena or another request from the

3:11:36from the federal government to share Quinsey data.  And there's no language in the contract that would

3:11:41require Flock uh to communicate that it shared  Quinsey data with the local police department,

3:11:47as much as we might hope that they would do  so. Um, that risk remains regardless of these

3:11:51changes to data sharing. My second question  is I I read like a flock sometimes they just

3:12:01uh change contract by themsel like silently don't  tell the customer and customer who will like every

3:12:11day keep people watching them. So that's that's  a concern. Could you talk some about those case?

3:12:19Yeah, absolutely. It's a really important point to  understand. And so not only is there the contract

3:12:23problem of Flock granting itself a license to  retain communities data and potentially share it

3:12:29externally, certainly use that data to train its  AI models. Um there is uh the separate issue of

3:12:36Flock repeatedly and unilaterally making updates  to its terms and conditions um without giving

3:12:42notice or an opportunity to object to the local  police department, its clients, its customers

3:12:48or local elected officials. So basically  uh flock can change language that dictates

3:12:54um how data might be shared, how data might be  used, uh without giving notice or an opportunity

3:12:59to object to local leaders. And it's repeatedly  done so my colleagues at ACLU national have

3:13:04documented a number of these changes. Um if you  do a little bit of research into this question,

3:13:20Sorry. I read like um FL company also have a light  about say working with ACLU and could you give

3:13:34some case of that? They they said they partner  with ACLU but it turns out it's not true. Yeah,

3:13:41we we don't partner with Flock. What?  We do not partner with Flock. Okay.

3:13:48And Okay.

3:13:52Okay. That's is my question. Thank you. So I  want to make a three simple points about Flock.

3:14:03So Flock has been caught repeatedly giving  misleading or inaccurate information to the

3:14:09public and the government officials about its  own technology and data practices. This this is

3:14:17important because Flock is not just a user of  this technology. They created it. They operate

3:14:24the platform. They understand what the technology  can do and how the data can be searched, analyzed,

3:14:31and shared better than most law enforcement  agencies do. So if if we can't trust the company

3:14:40to be truthful about its own technology, why  should we continue to put our residents private

3:14:47information into its hands? Second, if the  administration cancels Flock and simply moves

3:14:56to another ALPR comp company, it needs to clearly  understand what that company can do with the data,

3:15:05what the legislative guard rails are  and what protections are in place.

3:15:12There needs to be a robust public debate and the  city council approval before we jump from one APR

3:15:21company to another. Third, ultimately it's about  what the American people want. Do people really

3:15:31want this level of surveillance in their lives?  America was designed around a balance of power

3:15:39between the government and the government. When  the balance become more and more tilted toward

3:15:47the government, people will naturally feel  uneasy. And today you already see it and the

3:15:55government can say just trust me. But remember  trust only exist on level ground. When one side

3:16:07has overwhelming power over the other, it is no  longer trust. It is domination and submission.

3:16:18In my recent visits back to China, I  saw cameras everywhere and point from

3:16:24all directions. You may think that's  safe. No one can steal my car anymore.

3:16:34But the prem premises is you don't say anything  that displeases the government. So one time when

3:16:44I was chatting with my friend at a restaurant,  I accidentally mentioned the Chinese president's

3:16:51she's name. The topic wasn't even about him,  but just the name itself sent my friend into

3:16:59an electric shock. She immediately stopped me,  carefully looked around and looked up. She was

3:17:08afraid we would be accused of criticizing  the president. So now when we discuss the

3:17:17flock and the mass surveillance, it reminds  me vividly of her scared expression. I know

3:17:26America has not reached that level, but  watch out. Don't sleep in that direction.

3:17:34If you if you want to remain free citizens,  you have to protect the balance of power.

3:17:45So by saying that I propose even though I know  we can't vote today but I want to propose first

3:17:57city of Quincy should immediately terminate  all the contracts with the flock company and

3:18:05taken down all the flock cameras. Second, if  the city wants to contract with another apr

3:18:19company should have a city council's approve and

3:18:24have a robust public discussion.  This is my proposal. Thank you.

3:18:48Thank you. Um, I do want to thank everyone  for being here. I know it's getting late,

3:18:52so I won't repeat all of that, but I do think  that, um, Council Jacobs did a good job of

3:18:57putting together a format and assembling a group  of people that provided a wide range of expertise.

3:19:02Just a couple of comments, observations. Um, I was  really glad to hear about all the improvements,

3:19:08um, Chief Kennedy, that have been made. When when  we know better, we do better, right? And and so I

3:19:14I think it's great that we've tightened this up.  I I think it was wonderful that I didn't hear one

3:19:19um citizen criticize the department and the use  of, you know, there were no officers accused

3:19:26uh or criticized in any way like we've heard  in the news from some other departments. So,

3:19:30I I think for me and for a lot of people  that I've talked to, I don't think it's the

3:19:35the implementation of this technology in the city  of Quinzy um that causes people concern. I think

3:19:41it's it's um it's the technology itself. And I'll  just say that six months ago, I had never heard

3:19:48of Flock. I wish I could go back to that time.  Um but you know the emails started coming in,

3:19:53the news reports started coming out and now we've  all had to become um uh experts on this. Um couple

3:20:01of things though that because I have talked to  a lot of citizens. Um I want to make sure people

3:20:05understand Flock is a brand of license plate  reader cameras, the one that's implemented here

3:20:09in the city of Quinsey. There are other brands.  So when certain communities have said they've

3:20:14cut their ties with Flock, they may not have cut  their ties with another license plate reader um

3:20:19company. Um and the other thing I've mentioned to  people is that not every camera they see mounted

3:20:26on a pole is a flaw camera. There are many other  cameras, traffic cameras that are in use, cameras

3:20:32on private buildings, commercial buildings. So  not every camera you see is is a flaw camera.

3:20:38Um, you know, I I do have some concern about the  cloud storage with AWS, the wireless cameras. Um,

3:20:46you know, I I hope that we can, you know,  keep an eye on Flock and what they're doing.

3:20:53um you know my experience I did see in the Globe  I think it was yesterday's Globe there was a great

3:20:58article and there was a quote from Michael Bradley  the executive director of the Massachusetts Chief

3:21:03of Police Associations and he said sometimes  the technology gets out in front of the policy

3:21:09um in my experience with technology that's always  the case right the technology we you know Mark

3:21:15Zuckerberg famously said we like to move fast  and break things that's the world that technology

3:21:21companies travel in they don't um they don't ask  for permission. They'd rather ask for forgiveness.

3:21:27They're they're always trying to sort of leapfrog  over the other competitors. Um so I think it's the

3:21:33technology that that causes concern. And I use the  example of 23 and me. There were plenty of people

3:21:38that thought it was a great idea to have their  blood drawn and do DNA profiles. And you know,

3:21:44some of them found out they had relatives they  didn't know about or whatever. But then that

3:21:47company went belly up and the only thing they  really had the company had left was their data

3:21:54because data collection and data aggregation is  in itself the world the business that we're in

3:22:00right now. Um you know and and everybody is is  working to try to be ahead of that curve. Um,

3:22:09I would say that I think that if every um, law  enforcement agency had the kind of controls that

3:22:17Quinsey has now implemented, it might put Flock  out of business because they really are relying

3:22:22on that data aggregation and the data sharing  model. Um, because the other the other thing too

3:22:28is eventually all of the grant monies and the um,  venture capital money that they've been running on

3:22:35um, will run out. And so I I would like to say  just a couple of um suggestions as as we move

3:22:42this forward with whatever happens. Um I think  that having metrics of the cases that are that

3:22:49it's used for the numbers that are solved that  might not be easy to quantify specifically because

3:22:56it's obviously just one part of an investigation.  Um but being able to quantify that I think would

3:23:02be helpful. I think we're going to need to have  regular costbenefit analysis um because like I

3:23:07said, eventually the money will run out and this  will be costly to for the city to maintain. Um I

3:23:13would like to see that there's an explicit review  prior to the auto renewal of all these contracts.

3:23:19It seems like it, you know, if you don't opt out  30 days before, then it automatically renews.

3:23:24Never a great thing, whether it's a subscription  service, all of a sudden it hits your credit

3:23:27card and go, "Oh god, I forgot to cancel that  thing." Um, and this was touched upon a little

3:23:33bit to evaluate any changes in the terms of use  and how they're communicated from the vendor,

3:23:38it sounds like maybe not all that well. Um,  because as we know, whenever we um, you know,

3:23:45access an app on our phone that maybe we haven't  used in a while, it you know, you got to log in

3:23:50again because they want you to scroll through a  brand new terms of use. Click that you've accept

3:23:55it like anybody reads it, right? You just click  through it. So, I I would like to see that any

3:24:00changes in terms of use as well as any software  updates, you know, are explicitly evaluated so

3:24:06that we know what we're getting ourselves into.  Um, and um I think that was all I had. I and again

3:24:14I would like has already been mentioned it would  be nice if the state legislature would take this

3:24:19up so that each municipality isn't having to sit  here and go through all of this and make these

3:24:24decisions because um you know then you drive  over the river bridge and you're in Boston,

3:24:29you drive the other way and you're in Brainree.  It it does seem that there needs to be some state

3:24:34level guidance that would be helpful for this.  But I do thank you all for being here tonight.

3:24:42Any other questions? Councelor Ryan, hold.

3:24:49First of all, I want to say thank you  to everybody who came and shared all

3:24:53of their knowledge and um asked  questions and gave answers. Thank

3:24:58you very much. I do have a couple  of questions for Chief Kennedy.

3:25:08So, the first question that I have, Chief,  is how many flock cameras do you have? Uh,

3:25:1449. 49. 49 flock. And there's one um I should  take that back. We have 50 flock cameras. 49

3:25:21of them are ALPR. One of them is not ALPR. It's  called a Condor camera. It's like a live streaming

3:25:27camera. Okay. So 50 cameras because according to a  recent um foyer request, what was reported was 62

3:25:37cameras. Can you explain the difference? Yeah, I  was talking to councelor about that. I don't know

3:25:42where that number came from. We've never had more  than 49 ALPR cameras. Um so I'm not sure exactly,

3:25:49you know, where that came from or where the where  the um the misinformation there was. Okay. Okay.

3:25:58All right. Uh the second question  that I had was on your hot list,

3:26:04um what's the retention period for your hot list?  Uh so the basically whatever um as long as it

3:26:11stays in the hot list as long as the vehicle is  still wanted, it's going to stay in there. I think

3:26:16it updates every I believe it updates like every  six hours, but that's nationwide the hot list.

3:26:25So that means that if a case is not solved that  um hot list that specific case number stays

3:26:31in there. Yeah. And that's been an issue that  we've uh identified with the hot list because

3:26:36uh sometimes the person who puts it in is supposed  to be responsible for taking it out. So that's why

3:26:42we never rely just on on a hot list hit because  it might have been a stolen car that was reported

3:26:48that was never taken out of the hot list. So  that's why officers if they do get a hit on

3:26:54something that they have to uh verify that the  vehicle or the person is still wanted. U do you

3:27:00ever do a data review on these hot list to make  sure that it's updated on a timely fashion? No,

3:27:07I know talking to the vendor just this afternoon.  Um they said that they're they're updated,

3:27:12but again that's that's nationwide. It could be  somebody wanted for a homicide in Albuquerque. Um,

3:27:17and it would pop up that if they entered  the city of Quinsey that this person was

3:27:21wanted for homicide somewhere. Uh, could you  walk me through uh a system update with your

3:27:28um vendor? So, I'm sure that there's some updates  on the programming for the um ALPRS and in terms

3:27:37of our our like uh our portal. Yeah. Um I'd be the  wrong guy to talk to about that. Lieutenant Green,

3:27:44uh Jamie Green has been handling that.  He works uh um uh almost weekly, I think,

3:27:50with with the team there. He has a Zoom call like  once a week with our two of our flock reps, and he

3:27:56sort of basically the system that I I showed  you. It this looks completely different than

3:28:02uh it used to look. So, he's Jaime's been working  on that. Um and it's still a work in progress with

3:28:07the drop downs. We never had the drop downs uh and  the required for the case numbers. So he's been

3:28:13working with the engineers at Flock to to kind  of redesign uh our search fields. Okay. So once

3:28:19they updated it to um provide more clarification  on cases, was there a quality check done to make

3:28:25sure that it worked correctly? You mean like  the the the audit feature? I'm not I'm I'm not

3:28:32following the audit feature and CA actual cases.  So, did you put in a dummy case number to see

3:28:39um if it would come up or if you could create it?  They wouldn't know. Flock wouldn't know um if our

3:28:46case numbers um you know were different or wrong.  That's for our internal uh audit that that Captain

3:28:53Miller does once a month that he would recognize  that that case number is off. uh the flock um AI

3:28:59audit would pick up if it was if it was two  different case numbers for the same vehicle

3:29:05search that would flag and there might be a reason  for it but the the officer or the detective would

3:29:10have to come in and explain why there were two  different case numbers and looking for the same

3:29:14vehicle. Okay. And uh you had just mentioned  audit. Do you have an audit process in place? We

3:29:20do. So uh Captain Mike Miller uh he's in charge of  our detective bureau. um he audits uh every month

3:29:26in addition to the AI audit that um Flock just  uh created. So they audit our stuff for those

3:29:33uh some of the the items that I mentioned earlier  um that would flag and then uh Captain Miller

3:29:39does his own. Okay. And what happens if he finds  something questionable? What's the process? Yeah,

3:29:45he bring uh you know it's it's not an office you  want to go into. Um but he uh he's called people

3:29:50in and they've been able to explain uh what  happened like we talked about with the uh the

3:29:56um you know somebody put jizz in the search field  and they were able to that's how I knew that that

3:30:01situation was uh the street name of an individual  um in a drug investigation and do you keep an

3:30:07ongoing log of these um audit uh issues? Yeah. Uh,  Captain Miller does and he'll he sends me an email

3:30:15um explaining that you know he conducted an  audit and you know what he found. Uh, he does

3:30:19that monthly. Um, so there is uh, you know, like I  said, we don't our searches are down so it's it's

3:30:27not incredibly timeconuming. The one thing that  uh, I was talking to some of the counselors uh,

3:30:32and I talked to Captain Miller about it. if  anybody wants to come in and actually watch him

3:30:36uh conduct an audit. You might be a little  bored, but you're more than welcome to come

3:30:39in and actually watch him do it. Um, and we could  set that up if if that's something anyone wanted

3:30:44to do as representatives of of um the citizens of  the city. Uh, you're more than welcome to come in

3:30:50and and uh check our math. I might take you up on  that anytime. And let me see if I have any other

3:30:57questions. So, have you recently received any  requests from any other agencies for access to

3:31:02our data? No. Okay. No, not that I know of.  Unless a um I I I was a little too quick to

3:31:08say no. I'm not sure if somebody uh if another  agency was looking actually uh recently Boston,

3:31:15I think we were we were helping Boston out with  a homicide investigation uh where one of the

3:31:20suspects um came into Quinsey. Uh, so we were  working with Boston, but anytime we were going

3:31:25to do a search for an outside agency, um, we  would have them put that in writing to us and,

3:31:30um, ultimately, uh, Captain Miller would approve  or or deny or or Lieutenant O'Donnie or Lieutenant

3:31:36Kaufman, the two lieutenants who run that,  um, the Bureau of Criminal Investigations,

3:31:40they would sign off on it. Okay. Or deny it. And  the last question that I have is uh the you had

3:31:47stated that the ALPR data is now a closed system.  So that means that there's no federal agencies, no

3:31:55homeland security agencies that can gain access to  your data. Correct. That's correct. And we get a

3:32:02monthly email from Flock as well. I'll be happy to  to share that with you to confirm uh that no other

3:32:08agency has has looked at our um our network. So I  get that at the end of the month. Okay. And that

3:32:14includes Flock, too, right? That's from Flock.  Flock sent it to us to confirm our um our privacy

3:32:19settings. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, that's  all the questions that I have. Thank you. Thanks.

3:32:28Any other counselors like to speak? Councelor  McKe, one last question. Council Money, I don't

3:32:38um

3:32:41was I thought incorrectly. I was I was up. Um, so  thank you. I'm I have a very bad voice tonight,

3:32:47so I apologize. Thank you very much for everybody  being here and asking all the questions. I

3:32:52especially thank the chief and his his force being  here and all the specialists that are here. Chief,

3:32:56I have a couple of questions for you. I won't  be able to talk for too long. Waiting for me

3:33:00to sit down. I know. I did. I didn't I didn't  want you to sit down. Is councelor Jacobs just

3:33:04didn't recognize me. So I think you just explained  that um you know when you said you know what does

3:33:10what does actually close mean um you know with the  current inbound sharing permissions and outgoing

3:33:16search permissions and data history it changes who  can change that can is it just your internal staff

3:33:21that can change it if they wanted to change  it to be open who can change it um Lieutenant

3:33:26Green uh has been the one working with Flock  and we were uh we were on a Zoom call earlier

3:33:32and he kind of shared his screen on the Zoom call  and they were kind of walking him through Okay,

3:33:35go to that box. Check this. Check privacy. Go down  to here. You can see you can confirm that your

3:33:41uh sharing is off. U the network sharing, the  nationwide sharing, and just confirming kind of

3:33:46walking through. So, I had an idea. Like I said,  I've never used the system. Uh I've never worked

3:33:50in a in a unit that that used Flock. So, this  is all uh sort of new to me as well. Can it be

3:33:56turned on and off? And what do you know if it was  turned on and off? Yeah, it's just a like a toggle

3:34:00switch. So that's what um they believe happened in  Boston that it might have been operator error that

3:34:05somebody toggled it on. And I I'm just trying to  reiterate that because it is human error. It's an

3:34:11operating I'm so sorry I shouldn't even be here.  I hope I'm not I hope I'm not getting everybody's

3:34:15it's just a cold. Um I'm asking that because  that's preventing our data from being shared. But

3:34:21if we get a subpoena or if somebody from outside  if the federal agency comes and asks for it,

3:34:27who makes a decision as to whether or not that  gets shared? Uh so when we talk about sharing like

3:34:33if if uh Brainree was working on an investigation  and they wanted access to our data, we would not

3:34:39give them access to the data. We would do the  search for them if it met our parameters. Um

3:34:45but we wouldn't like you know toggle that on and  allow somebody else access to our camera system.

3:34:50So Flock doesn't have any access to yours if it's  shut off. It's shut off. Correct. So, and then

3:34:56I understood the I think I was understanding  where um councelor Ash was going and um but I

3:35:01wanted to ask a couple of questions concerning  an active criminal investigation um cannot be

3:35:06released publicly. Correct. An active criminal  investigation? No. Um, but if I'm not asking

3:35:13that they be released publicly, what specific law  prevents a qualified independent auditor operating

3:35:18under a confidentially agreement and appropriate  security requirements from reviewing flock access

3:35:24logs in determining whether search is compiled  with the department policy? The the question is

3:35:31what we could have an independent auditor if if we  absolutely could if if uh if that's something the

3:35:39administration wanted. Right now, I think we're  uh we're doing it. We're uh open to, like I said,

3:35:44anyone coming in and watching. It's not it's not  about us having an independent auditor. What if

3:35:48what if a spec what specific law prevents? It's  the specific law. What specific law would prevent

3:35:54a qualified independent auditor um operating  under a confidential confidential agreement,

3:36:01right? And I'm sorry because it's coming out like  really bad. So, no, I think I think I get what

3:36:06you're saying. I I don't believe there's a law. I  was just saying I I never said there was a law uh

3:36:10that that wouldn't allow an independent auditor  to come in and do it. I just said operationally

3:36:16um I wouldn't be comfortable having somebody  come in uh and look at active investigations,

3:36:20but I I don't you're right. I don't believe  there's a law that that would prohibit it. I think

3:36:24that's one of the concerns. So, an outside auditor  cannot see an underlying case information. Can the

3:36:29department provide an independent audit with a  redacted or deidentified audit log containing

3:36:34the officer's date, search, justification, case  numbers, and verification? Is there some other

3:36:40way that we can if you had to have that audit  that was coming in? Is there another way that

3:36:43we could protect the data? No. And again, I'm I'm  I I'm uh I'm open to to other ideas. Um you know,

3:36:49like I said, this is this is a work in progress  for us. I think that that we recognize that

3:36:54we needed to uh clean some things up. uh we've  been working for a year on this um to to clean

3:37:00things up and get it to where I'm I'm pretty  comfortable that I can stand up here and say

3:37:05um that we're using this appropriately and that  we we have guardrails in place. Now um you know

3:37:10if that's another thing that that the council  would like, we could certainly look towards

3:37:14um you know having an auditing company come in  on a confidentiality agreement and and check our

3:37:20math. I have no problem with that. So, one of the  things I have a concern with, and it's really just

3:37:24general about this, is that it's not the Quinsey  police. I I hope you know that I don't think it's

3:37:28the Quincy police. You can put all the safeguards  you can put into it, but this is a private company

3:37:33and although you have it shut off and they're  changing and they're changing really rapidly

3:37:36now because throughout not just the state of  Massachusetts, but throughout the country, people

3:37:39are pulling the plug on Flock. So, you know that  that company is going to try to salvage anything

3:37:43they can because their data is their is their  future, right? So, they're going to tell you all

3:37:48the things you want to hear. They're going to put  those safeguards into place, but they can change

3:37:52at any time. And that's one of my concerns that I  have with Flock is because they're not, you know,

3:37:56they're not, you might be meeting with them every  week on on Monday, that guy you're meeting with is

3:38:00a good guy, but whoever's making the decisions  at Flock are are not making the decisions that

3:38:04are best for potentially people. And you said it  yourself earlier that you when you learned about

3:38:08some of the stuff, you were concerned about it. I  mean, it's it's concerning, but at the same time,

3:38:13I absolutely understand the tool that you have  at your hands. And I don't want to take away

3:38:17any tools from you, but I do have concerns about  and and I know you don't think it's surveillance,

3:38:22but it's not necessarily the Quincy police  that are surveilling people. It's block the

3:38:28organization and it's the connection. Do we  also use um Ring doorbells potentially for

3:38:34when you have a situation like a a stolen car  in a neighborhood or because I know you don't

3:38:38have lock cameras in every neighborhood, but you  do that too as well, right? Do we do what? I'm

3:38:41sorry. Use Ring doorbells or or um the connection  for Ring doorbells. Is that another way that you

3:38:46use technology to be able to solve crimes? Yeah,  I mean, if if we have an incident, our detectives

3:38:52go around and request um from residents if  they see Ring cameras or or another brand,

3:38:57um they'll request uh footage. Um we've uh  uh also done um uh search warrants to get

3:39:05uh video evidence from people's ring cameras or  nest cameras or whatever they have. Uh so yeah,

3:39:09it's just it's another tool that that we use in  an investigation. So I have one other question.

3:39:15You know, Flock has said that they have never been  there's never been a data breach, right? Is that

3:39:19Have they ever had a data breach? I I mean I would  defer to to these gentlemen here. I don't believe

3:39:26so. I mean my under I when I say data breach, I'm  not sure. Uh but I know that in our contract, the

3:39:34city of Quinsey owns the data. Uh Flock uh as it  was brought up does have a license. Your contract

3:39:39recently. So, you re re did you renegotiate your  contract because originally your contract didn't?

3:39:43No. In the I believe I I sent them all out the the  contracts. Um, and it was mentioned earlier today

3:39:49um that you know the city of Quinsey owns the  data. Um, I am not aware of any instance where

3:39:55Flock has uh sold a municipality's data. Um, I'm  not worried. So, okay. I'm So, it's not so much

3:40:01that Quinsey owns the data. We don't we don't  hold the data on a server here in Quinsey. It's

3:40:06in a cloud. No, it's in the AWS system and then  it's um uh deleted which will be it was after 30

3:40:13days permanently deleted. Um and I know we had an  incident where uh one of our detectives had called

3:40:19out there. There was he was looking for um for  uh a plate from like 32 days ago. Um and uh they

3:40:27basically told him it's gone. We don't have it. We  can't you know even if you get a warrant that it's

3:40:31it's it's been permanently deleted. Um so so sorry  and again they don't have um registry access. They

3:40:41have a picture of a vehicle and a plate. They  don't know whose car that is. I understand that.

3:40:46So actually on September 22nd um there was a  security notice that was delivered. It was a

3:40:50delayed disclosure that was delivered from Flock  the company. Um Flock notice previously sheared

3:40:57third party mapping vulnerability was reported on  November 20. This is September 22nd, 2026 reported

3:41:04on November 2025 and fixed they supposedly  fixed it in December of 2025. The September 2026

3:41:11notice described the publication of device names,  locations, and types obtained in late 2025. Flock

3:41:18said it had no indication of unauthorized access  of use. As flock um flock to produce the original

3:41:23notice and supporting timeline distinguishes  discovering vulnerabilities from um confirming

3:41:29confirming exploitations. So what I'm saying here  is that they flock flock said um on the dates that

3:41:38we first learned about the v vulnerability they  said that they didn't it wasn't shared then it

3:41:41was shared on the third party. So first they  said that nothing ever happened and then it

3:41:44was actually it was actually shared. This is the  company that you're putting we're putting all our

3:41:49eggs in a basket for. You might have it closed,  but you just recently that you just recently shut

3:41:54it off is what I'm saying. So last year they  were there was a there was a breach and they

3:41:58didn't even tell the organizations until September  22nd, 2026 this year. That's when we thought I'm

3:42:03not aware of that. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So every  every organization should have gotten this email.

3:42:08I got this email. This is why I'm bringing it up.  I'm not trying to I'm not trying to gut you. It's

3:42:12not a gutcha. It's really just an eyeopening to  what the company is doing. So although as I'm

3:42:18sitting here and I'm hearing and I I don't want  to take any tools away from anybody to be able

3:42:23to do your jobs, but what I get afraid of is what  that tool is being used for outside of what this

3:42:29is being used for. It might be closed here, but  you just closed it as of August. And then a whole

3:42:34year after it was shared, the data breach happened  because there's so much eyes on them right now.

3:42:39They're having to actually come truth come like  come up with the truth. And this is supposedly

3:42:43something they're a technology company and this is  something that we're using for crime prevention,

3:42:48right? But they're actually not being honest with  us about what they're doing. So it's kind of it's

3:42:53just very confusing in that sense when you're  looking at that. And it's data and when you think

3:42:57of the data, you're not thinking of you're just  thinking of his license plates, but it could be

3:43:00a million other things that you look at that. So  when you think of a license plate, like you know,

3:43:05I I don't memorize people's license plates. I  don't know. I also know that this we get a lot

3:43:10of strange emails. I will say I get a lot of I get  a lot of emails, a lot of letters in the city of

3:43:14Quinzy. You know, people are telling me that their  license plates that people alter their license

3:43:17plates. I'm sure you have heard that too, right?  People I'm not going to alter my license plate

3:43:23because I wouldn't have any benefit to do that.  But that's that's a whole other issue. So that

3:43:28that LPR reader wouldn't be able to actually help  you in that situation. Correct. If the license

3:43:32plate was altered, you wouldn't be able to like  they had they they put spray paint on the plate or

3:43:37something. I mean, yeah, I've heard of different  things and they've been doing it for years on

3:43:41um when they started doing the uh the uh ALPR  toll collection on the on the highways people. So,

3:43:46they don't have to take the So, everybody's going  to try to scheme the system is what I'm trying to

3:43:50say. Like even like I don't want to pay my toll  booth, so I'm not going to I'm going to do this

3:43:53so I don't have to pay the toll. But really,  when I look at this and I'm talking about the

3:43:58data breach, what I was really bothered by this is  that what they can't this is throughout the whole

3:44:02country. This is not I'm not saying that it was  just Quinsey, it's throughout the whole country.

3:44:06We have 50 cameras. We don't know if any of our,  you know, we just secured it. We just shut off

3:44:11that. We shut Boston, Boston by accident  had it open. We had it open before that,

3:44:15too. We don't know if our data has been taken  and what it's being done with. And that's what's

3:44:19the scary part of this is. And I know it's just  license plates. That's what we're saying. But we

3:44:23don't know what that connection is. And we don't  know if the federal government comes in and says,

3:44:27"We're coming in to do a sting on X, Y, and Z."  and they're gonna demand your in the from what I

3:44:32understand and I could be wrong. The federal  government comes in and asks something from

3:44:36Quinsey. Can you say no, we don't want to  share that information for you? The federal

3:44:39government comes into Quinsey like the state that  Quinsey is Quinsey. The state comes into Quinsey,

3:44:44the federal government comes into the state.  If they come in and say that we want your data,

3:44:48are you going to say no, we don't want to share  it with you? No, it would depend on what they were

3:44:51investigating. Uh certainly if if we have another,  you know, god forbid, a Boston marathon bombing or

3:44:56something like that and they come in and they want  to look at our data, we are going to cooperate.

3:44:59We are not going to cooperate if they're looking  at, you know, uh, people's immigration status.

3:45:03We can't. That's it's, you know, we talked about  the Protect Act earlier. Um, we we don't cooperate

3:45:08with federal immigration authorities. We can't  by law. By law. So, but if they I mean, talking

3:45:15in a hypothetical situation, if there's the DEA  is doing a drug investigation in Quinsey, we're

3:45:20going to work with them. If the FBI is coming in  and doing a human trafficking case, we're going to

3:45:24work with them and and the but we're going to be  the ones control. We're not flipping a switch and

3:45:28letting them take over our network. One would hope  you wouldn't be able to, but that's the the thing

3:45:32I think the thing that people are really afraid  of, and this is really it is not the local people

3:45:37who are doing things. This is not about the local  Quinsey Police Department. It is about the changes

3:45:42in the way the way people are utilizing this  data and the way the companies are sharing the

3:45:48information and how cozy everybody's getting with  that data and where it's going from. And that's

3:45:54really what I think when you listen to what people  are talking about and the sense that we are that's

3:45:58the surveillance that people are talking about  and it's it's no different than anything else that

3:46:03we talk about like we talked about cell phones  but we actually more secure on our cell phones

3:46:08than we are with the LPI. I could be wrong about  that. I'm going to ask the gentleman from the the

3:46:14um forget his name. Mr. Epstein, can you come up  please? I'm so sorry. I'm going to ask him to come

3:46:20up for a second. Thank you much very much, Chief.  And I do really appreciate everything that you

3:46:23guys are doing because it's it's not easy being a  police officer in 2026. So, so I I guess when we

3:46:31talking earlier about um cell cell phones, we were  talking about that and I was just talking about

3:46:36data breaches, like that's a pretty big thing to  me that I that you get notified that Flock, this

3:46:42was last year that this happened and they didn't  notify anybody until September of 22nd of this

3:46:47year. And you know, they're they're telling people  you should look to see if anything was breached on

3:46:52your side. Why should I be looking for my side  if I was breached? Shouldn't they be telling me

3:46:56if it was breached? I'm just asking that because  that this is this is isn't this the whole reason

3:47:00why we're all sitting up here talking about this?  Because we don't have control of it. Even if we

3:47:05shut it off, we don't really have control of it.  Could you could you enlighten me on that? Yeah,

3:47:09I mean, it's a great question. I think another  city councelor and another Massachusetts community

3:47:13re recently said, you know, if it was so neat  and tidy, I don't think communities across the

3:47:17country would be talking about these issues. Uh  there are definitely things that local police

3:47:21departments can do that are steps in the right  direction, but ultimately it's it's this private

3:47:25company that controls the data um not necessarily  municipalities. And um that's something that

3:47:31could be different with other license plate reader  vendors. I think that's a really important point.

3:47:35This whole conversation is not supposed to be a  zero- sum game. Um, where either you take away

3:47:39tools from the police department entirely. It  shouldn't be punishing. This is what it feels

3:47:44like. It feels like what's happening is that  we're bringing up our our our chief who's doing

3:47:48an exceptionally great job and grilling him and  his department saying this is bad. This is bad.

3:47:53And that's not really what we're saying. What  we're saying is it's a pretty big problem because

3:47:58it's not just here in it's throughout the whole  country. really throughout the whole world, but

3:48:01it's really the and it's and I and I I understand  where the chief's coming from by saying he takes

3:48:07he doesn't believe it's surveillance, but it is in  the bigger picture of what the company's using it

3:48:12for is what I think the problem is. And there's no  guard rails. We might have policies and guardrails

3:48:16on them here in Quinsey, but we don't have them  in the state or the federal government. Is that

3:48:20that's the biggest problem? Right. That's exactly  the biggest problem. you know, we're not totally

3:48:24in control of our of our municipalities data um  in any community across Massachusetts and the

3:48:29absence of these guardrails. And also just want to  say to your point about data vulnerabilities and

3:48:33data breaches. Um the way Flock gets around  these issues is by defining narrow breach

3:48:38uh data breaches in an extremely narrow way  uh to the point where they won't be required

3:48:43to inform municipalities. Um but the reality  is there have been a number of instances where

3:48:48uh flock data has been vulnerable um to external  actors and I'm not familiar with the case you're

3:48:53raising but I'd certainly be interested what I  think I'll be happy to share it with you. What I

3:48:57think is super interesting about it is that still  today even though they sent out this notification

3:49:02to all municipalities that have flocks that they  didn't update their website to say that they had

3:49:08a breach. So even though they're communicating  to the they're communicating to the communities,

3:49:12they're not they're not actually being honest  about what they're telling you when you go to

3:49:16their website. Right. And they continue to attend  city council meetings across the state and inform

3:49:20local lawmakers that they've never had a data  breach supposedly when there's information to

3:49:24the contrary all around us. Yeah. I mean, again,  I'm not trying to scare anybody because this

3:49:28is I and that's the other thing is like I I I  think we believe Quinsey is a very safe city.

3:49:34There's there are bad things that happen in  Quincy though because I don't want to make it seem

3:49:36like the police officers don't have to deal with  anything that's scary because I don't want to deal

3:49:39with what they have to deal with and I know it's  scary but at the same time this is like a whole

3:49:44different type of scary because it's it's it's  technology it's data it's it's personalization

3:49:50it's understand and and we we talk about this  even when we talk about um elections we were just

3:49:55talking about elections just a couple weeks ago  about how you can tell how many ballots you have

3:49:59to have for Democrats or Republicans because we're  getting more savvy with our data And I, you know,

3:50:04my my my private career was marketing and  communications. I bought data. Like that's what

3:50:09you did. You targeted and you figured out who your  audience was when you were doing those things.

3:50:13That was back a long time. I can go the other  way with you, Chief. I was that was 20 28 years

3:50:17ago. And I would we would think we were really  sophisticated because we weren't using analog

3:50:21anymore. But it's amazing how much changes. And I  say to the kids, the kids that are grown up now,

3:50:26technology is changing faster than they can even  keep up with. That's what we're dealing with.

3:50:31And you know, bad actors are everywhere.  They're not just they're not just, you know,

3:50:37they're not just in the they're everywhere. It's  no different than drugs. Drugs are everywhere.

3:50:40Everybody's susceptible to it. Bad actors are  everywhere. And they're in the big corporations,

3:50:44too. And they're doing bad things with the  stuff that we don't want them to do that with.

3:50:47And that's our data. And that's what we're doing  in the United States. And it is scary. I mean,

3:50:51I understand like in other countries, they have  more they have more risks. And I want to be able

3:50:56to support anything that happens that we can  help other communities with. But what I get

3:50:59afraid with is it's not the Quinsey police.  It's not the Quincy police. It's the company.

3:51:04It's what they're using it for. And that there's  no You can have as many guardrails as you want,

3:51:09Chief. They have none. And that's the problem.  So, thank you very much. I I said I wasn't going

3:51:13to talk long and I talked really long and I  just want to say thank you to everybody. I'd

3:51:16ask all the all the rest of your questions,  but that's all I got for tonight. Thank you.

3:51:22Council McKe and

3:51:28popped. Oh, was I was brief. Um, so just  to confirm, so we so there's a number of

3:51:36of risks that we're worried about. Some of it is  data breaches, um, and some of it is just legal

3:51:43civil liberties. So, if the city of Quinsey ran  its own system, that would still have these legal

3:51:50issues as you mentioned before. Um so but it would  probably be better in terms of like data selling

3:51:58etc. Um I wanted to ask the chief a couple  of questions if you don't mind coming up. Um,

3:52:07so I wonder if you can tell. I know you're not  seeing exactly where the cameras are, but this

3:52:13one Condor camera. I don't know much about this,  but it it saw a little thing um TV segment on it,

3:52:22and it seems like it's a kind of camera that can  kind of move and track people as they're walking

3:52:26around. No, no. there. That's a a separate um  the condo commer camera is just basically like

3:52:34a live stream CCTV camera. Uh I think what you're  referring to is the the program and I actually

3:52:41just found out about it today. There's nobody in  Massachusetts is that that I'm aware of that uses

3:52:46it. But the Condor camera is able to do this thing  called a free form search where you could put in

3:52:51like um you know female yellow dress uh blue jeans  or something and it would kind of scan. That's a

3:52:59separate um thing that those the ALPR cameras  the 49 ALPR cameras cannot be configured with

3:53:07that technology. So that's why I say that our ALPR  cameras do not track people. Uh the Condor camera

3:53:14um they use that they turned it on in uh  Providence after the Brown University shooting

3:53:19and you might have seen the images of the the guy  the suspect there walking around. That was with

3:53:23the Condor camera that Providence had. Um but  our Condor camera and I'll be I'll be honest,

3:53:28we have it up. We put it up on Rashidi Drive  because we were getting a lot of uh issues

3:53:33with illegal dumping up there and it was really  just trying to target illegal dumping uh speeding

3:53:38cars and um that was pretty much it. But the the  the real reason we put it up there was all the

3:53:44illegal dumping people going up there with dump,  you know, throwing mattresses and junk and um the

3:53:48DPW working with the DPW. That's why we we put it  there. And but there's only we have one of those.

3:53:55Would wouldn't an ALPR camera have been able to  There's an ALPR and a Condor camera in that area.

3:54:04Yeah, there's an ALPR, I believe, right down the  bottom um of the ramp uh as cars are getting off

3:54:10the highway. Okay. Um All right. Thank you. So, um  I think uh Councelor Ash put it really well that

3:54:20that these issues are coming down to discretion.  Um and and so while we do have stricter controls,

3:54:32um it still seems like, you know, there's a  level of of discretion. So again, like if if

3:54:40even another community wanted to access or wanted  Quincy to do a search, there's discretion there,

3:54:48too. And maybe there just has to be in in any kind  of, you know, world where any number of things can

3:54:54happen. But um I guess my concern is if what what  kind of oversight if um I know you're saying no

3:55:03immigration data, but um let's say some other  federal agency had some query um and they put

3:55:13it in writing in an email. So there was a paper  trail um which would follow the new policy and QPD

3:55:21determined that it was acceptable to them. Um how  might the public or um you know the the council

3:55:35know about something like that? like how many  searches are coming from like we we don't know

3:55:41because it looks like it's all coming from within  Quinsey, right? Is there any way to determine,

3:55:48you know, how many of those kinds of requests are  coming in or where they're coming from? Yeah. So,

3:55:55I I I'd have to do a deeper dive into that. Like  I said, I'm not um incredibly familiar. I don't

3:56:00know all the drop downs. I don't know if there  is one for outside agency assist. There might be.

3:56:05I could look into that and get back to you. Uh but  you know, any agency that that wanted our help,

3:56:11whether they're local, state, or federal partners,  if it's a legitimate law enforcement reason,

3:56:16uh and it it reaches our our parameters of what  we find acceptable and it's signed off on by

3:56:21a supervisor, then we would absolutely work with  uh our our local, state, and federal partners. We

3:56:27just wouldn't give them direct access or control  of our system. Okay. Um, and then I just wondered

3:56:35about I mean I I really I feel like when there's  a warrant there's definitely you know some outside

3:56:45um over oversight or or determination of what you  know is is acceptable which I think to many of

3:56:55us would feel better just you know somewhat some  outside check. Um, would would the QPD be willing

3:57:07to voluntarily only do searches on using warrants  like when you when you have a warrant do a search?

3:57:16right now it's not required under Massachusetts  law um that you know the the decision is that

3:57:22um currently and it may change that uh there  is no expectation of privacy when you're on

3:57:27a public road in a vehicle with a license  plate that you're required to display. Um

3:57:32so I don't even know if we went to Quinsey  District Court um and tried to apply for

3:57:38a warrant that probably throw us out of  there. I don't know. But it's it's I don't

3:57:44uh you know tying up the judge's docket with a  warrant for something we don't need a warrant

3:57:48for. Uh I we're not there yet. And if the  law changes, certainly we'll comply with

3:57:52the law. Uh but right now we're we're in full  compliance with Massachusetts law. Okay. Um,

3:58:06I guess I'm still I'm still wondering about  the number of of cameras that Quincy has

3:58:12relative to other communities and not quite  clear on why we do have so many and whether

3:58:20um the QPD would be opening open to reducing that  number if we're talking about like still having

3:58:28any at all? Like could could you deal with like  other communities don't have as many? Why why

3:58:35do we have so many? Yeah, and I'll go back  into it. I mean, we're we're a pretty large

3:58:39uh city. Um I think I pulled up some stats, 26  square miles, 226 miles of roadway. Um and we

3:58:47have a number of points of ingress and egress in  the city. And like we talked about earlier, just

3:58:52around like the um the the Rotary, the Furnusbrook  Rotary, there's a couple just right there. Um,

3:58:58so I don't I'm not looking to get any more. I  think we have um our our city pretty strategically

3:59:05covered and like we talked about before,  they're not, you know, when neighbors thought

3:59:09um, you know, they were in neighborhoods. They're  not in in residential neighborhoods. We're not

3:59:13watching people. We're they're not, you know,  we're not surveilling people and watching where

3:59:18they go to church or where they go get their  groceries. It's points of ingress and egress

3:59:22in the city and they're sort of strategically  placed around. Um, and that's it's just sort of

3:59:29how we did it. I I I think we have a some pretty  good coverage. Um, but as you saw like with

3:59:35uh Lieutenant O'Donn's car, we got two plates.  I don't know where he went after that. You know,

3:59:39it's not like we're able to follow him and  track him all through the city. Okay. Thank you.

3:59:51Good evening. Y um so I just am gonna ask a few  questions here. My first question is going to

3:59:58be for Mr. Ross. May or may not be able to  answer this. It's more of just an inquiry

4:00:02that I have. Um you know, you had mentioned  or it had been mentioned that these cameras

4:00:09are pretty inexpensive to to run considering all  the things that they do. um even though it only

4:00:17kind of or majority of the cases that it solves  are kind of like very low-lying crime and uh you

4:00:24know stolen cars and maybe car accidents. Is there  any evidence that um like points to like insurance

4:00:33companies are like maybe trying to subsidize this  like as as like a you know because it is something

4:00:39that that they can benefit from. So I just was  wondering if there had ever been any Not that

4:00:43I'm aware of. No, I there is uh quite a bit of  speculation based on the terms and agreements in

4:00:49most of the contracts that eventually they will  convert the scans that they're taking into some

4:00:55sort of data product whether that's anonymized or  not. Like there's you I think I gave the example

4:01:00of the cell phone companies like before we had  federal legislation on cell phones you could just

4:01:06go buy cell phone data from data brokers. Like I  had a colleague back 2014 2016 that had you know

4:01:14million something cell phone pings that they were  linking up through police stations to identify

4:01:19cops and then tracking cop movements to basically  write a research paper on that. Um we passed

4:01:25federal legislation on some of that stuff and so  most of the data brokers now anonymize that data

4:01:29but you can still go buy it like I have some that  I used for research purposes. It's anonymous, but

4:01:34you can still track, you know, for somebody that's  in that data set that opted in a third party app,

4:01:38you can track everywhere they've gone, every  store. You can get approximate home location.

4:01:43Companies know who these people are, but we're not  allowed to. But people speculate that eventually

4:01:48Flock is going to convert based on their terms of  service into that type of company. Okay. Thank you

4:01:55so much. My next question is actually for Chief  Kennedy. Um, and I think this may have already

4:02:02been asked. I'm going ask it again. So, we have,  you know, flock cameras. We have um CCTV cameras.

4:02:08There's no way that those CCTV cameras are like  any way it could be attached to Flock or be you

4:02:16would never feed it through some other type of of  um you know um AI thing to extract data from it.

4:02:25No, our our our CCTV uh cameras are through uh  the Genitech portal. It's a completely separate

4:02:31portal than Flock. Okay. And another question I  had from a constituent had to do with the buses.

4:02:37And I know that that's not Flock, but it's some  other company, and I don't remember the name of

4:02:42the company, but are are those cameras still,  you know, license plate reader c? Are they do

4:02:48they read license plates like flock cameras? Uh,  I I don't have um I'm not as up to speed. Captain

4:02:55Ralph Willlet has been running point on that.  uh he's the commander of our traffic division,

4:02:59but my understanding and Mr. Walker might be able  to speak to it um because I know he's sitting on

4:03:04some of the meetings, but the um when somebody  would go by a school bus that had the stop sign

4:03:10out and the arm extended um that they would take  a a picture of that plate. It's a bus patrol

4:03:16uh is the company. Um, and I know towards the end  of the school year last year, they were sending

4:03:21out warnings to people and it was sort of shocking  the number of people that actually drive past

4:03:25school buses when they have the uh the lights  flashing and the the armout. Um, so there is

4:03:32uh I think there's another meeting coming up this  week to to talk about the roll out of that. But

4:03:37um it's I don't believe it's a flock camera, but  it definitely reads the license. It's an ALPR

4:03:41camera. It is an ALPR camera, I believe. So, yeah,  because it would it gives a I think a pretty clear

4:03:46picture of the of the vehicle. So, when the stop  sign is closed, the camera is covered. I'm sorry,

4:03:54sir. Could you say that again? When the stop  sign on the bus is closed, the camera is covered.

4:03:59That's my understanding, but again, I'm not uh as  well versed on on that because I haven't been in

4:04:04those meetings. That's really been with the school  department uh Mr. Walker and and Captain Willard.

4:04:09Because the only reason I asked that is, you  know, school buses are, you know, we talk about

4:04:12these flock cameras are only on our main streets,  but these school buses are in our neighborhoods.

4:04:17They're turning around in our driveways, right?  Um, at least I live at the end of a dead end

4:04:21street and they are definitely turning around  in my driveway, but um Okay, very good. Um,

4:04:30also when um when a police detective um goes into  the flock software, the AWS cloud or whatever it

4:04:40is um you know do they have to like create like  a I know I know the cloud is like creating a a

4:04:48repository of the searches, right? But is there  any um do the detectives have to like create like

4:04:54a CAD like a a CAD inside the system? So like  you use QED right in inside the system. Yeah.

4:05:02I mean I mean I mean does it does it trigger  them having to to do a an input into the into

4:05:06the computerated dispatch? If they're going to  search for something, they're going to need a

4:05:10case number. So they would have to enter some  type of call into CAD in order to generate the

4:05:15case number to do the search. Okay. Um, so you  also mentioned an audit or or that uh I think

4:05:22it was it was Captain Miller. Captain Miller does  the audits. Yes. When did that audit start? When

4:05:28did we actually or I know we've when I know you  had mentioned it, how far back do those audits

4:05:33actually go? Yeah. So the the audit we did was  back to January. This last January. This past

4:05:38January. Yeah. So out of 11 years we have we have  eight like what nine months of of audits correct?

4:05:48Yes. Okay. Um so yeah six years with flock and  then the other time with the uh the other system

4:05:56I can't really speak to I just remember they were  uh always breaking and um you know in the past

4:06:05you know I worked in law enforcement. I was a law  enforcement ranger for the National Park Service.

4:06:09I worked in Hangout 911 for a time. One of  the things that we used to get was, you know,

4:06:16the people looking to ping somebody's cell phone  for like a missing person, right? And you had

4:06:21mentioned that um you know, you use Flock to  kind of aid in this um this activity, right,

4:06:32to help find missing people. Have you noticed,  and I mean you probably don't actually have any

4:06:36numbers to back this up, but maybe anecdotally,  do you notice that the um call for pinging cell

4:06:43phones has decreased as flock has been introduced?  Like, do you find that the department, you know,

4:06:50doesn't ping as many phones because they can  use flock? Yeah, I I I I haven't. I I you know,

4:06:57I'd have to speak to my communications people um  and see. I know they still are uh pinging phones

4:07:03um when especially when somebody is uh you know  endangered. Okay. And earlier you had said that

4:07:10um you know monthly there's there's the audit  dating back to January and you said that Captain

4:07:18Miller sends you an email correct regarding that  audit. So he always emails you the results of

4:07:25his audit. It's never by phone, it's never  through text message. It's always by email.

4:07:30Uh, no. I mean, we've spoken about it, but  I I've been asking him to send me an email

4:07:34uh with the results of his audit, and that's all  obviously uh public record. Okay. And, you know,

4:07:41and it's another thing we we might uh even start  putting on our transparency portal as well,

4:07:45the results of the audits. Yeah. Um, Mr. Ross had  mentioned something and I I hope I'm not messing

4:07:52this up but he had said that um you know there's  three things in regards to law enforcement that

4:07:58that um there's an interest in it's like officer  manpower right um the in technology and community

4:08:06cooperation or or how how I guess that that be  like how how the community perceives the police

4:08:12of those three things which one of those is the  most important to you? Well, councelor, you you

4:08:20the the technology obviously um you know, we're in  the trust business. Um you know, I like to say we

4:08:25don't police our community, we police with our  community. And I think that in our department,

4:08:30we've been making deposits into the Bank of Trust  for a very long time in this community. And you

4:08:35know, I stand before you today and I'm I'm asking  to make a withdrawal. I'm asking you to trust me.

4:08:40And I understand that, you know, Yeah. Thank  you. uh you know I was I was at a a training

4:08:47um and a gentleman said you know talking about  trust uh and he said you know if put a picture

4:08:52of a dorsal fin up and he said is that a shark  or is that a dolphin and um and you know people

4:08:57weighed in and he said well I can tell you I grew  up surfing in Southern California I know that

4:09:02that's a dolphin 100% that's a dolphin he said  some of you will trust me some of you will go

4:09:06surfing and a lot of you are going to be heading  for your car cuz all you're going to see is jaws

4:09:10and I understand that people in this room. Um  that and a lot of people are just going to see

4:09:15the shark and I get that and I'm not trying to I  knew I wasn't going to come in here tonight and

4:09:20change anyone's mind. I'm standing up here because  I'm passionate about this technology. I've seen

4:09:25what it can do. I've been in the hospital rooms  with survivors of sexual assaults at 3:00 in the

4:09:30morning. And I'm passionate about it. So, I know  that it can help us. It has helped us. It will

4:09:36continue to help us as long as we have it. Um and  and that's why I'm standing up here. I know it's

4:09:41not the most popular thing to do. I know that, you  know, I've I've upset people in my own agency when

4:09:46I restricted who had access to it because we have  a lot of uh really good um young officers who are

4:09:51conscientious that would like the alerts when a  stolen car comes in and we said, "No, we're not

4:09:56giving it to you. We're going to restrict it." I  know I'm upsetting some people in the community uh

4:10:00that that are against it, but I've also had a lot  of calls of people who were supportive of it. Um,

4:10:06so you know I you know talk about there's a lot  of talk about John Adams tonight. Um, you know,

4:10:11and I'll tell you when he represented the soldiers  in the Boston Massacre, he did what he thought

4:10:17was right even though it wasn't popular. So  I understand I'm a man on an island up here.

4:10:21I'm passionate about this technology because I've  seen what it can do. So yeah, community, you know,

4:10:27they're the reason we get to do what we do. Um  and uh so yeah, the community trust is important,

4:10:32but so is being able to find um you know, somebody  who's endangered. So is being able to take,

4:10:40you know, a serial rapist off the street. Um  these are things that are important to me. And

4:10:47my final question here is, you know, you showed  us a policy. I don't know if was that a draft

4:10:52policy or is that like an official is that like  the one I gave you? Yeah. that's going to be um

4:10:56that's going to replace the current policy that  we have. So the question I have is how comfortable

4:11:03are you in enforcing that policy? Um I'm very  comfortable. I mean it it's not even enforcing

4:11:10the policy violation of that policy are criminal  offenses. So like I've said we hold people

4:11:16accountable in this department. We uh have have  parted ways with people. I've suspended people.

4:11:22I've disciplined people. I'm not afraid to do  that. that I've been the chief for three years and

4:11:26um and we've we've parted ways with the  number of people. So obviously I'm I'm going

4:11:33to enforce that policy. All right. Very good.  Thank you. I don't have any more questions.

4:11:44Councelor Yan.

4:11:49Thank you chair. But my this  question is for my colleague

4:11:53So I have a question for all my colleagues all  the counelors. What's the rationale of keep

4:12:01doing business with and keep spending tax dollar  money and keep subjecting our residents private

4:12:09information to a company which have has been  reportly repeatedly report repeatedly reported

4:12:18to violate. Oh no, breach trust. I I want to  ask my colleagues why we still doing that.

4:12:39um I um I I think you know I'm here tonight  to really learn and listen and I really want

4:12:49to process all of this over a little time  um and and do some more research. I mean,

4:12:57I I find myself um more on the fence than I  would have expected to be because, you know,

4:13:08I do think we're generally a very safe city.  We've been able to manage without this.

4:13:15Um but I do think you know there if I think  about my son getting kidnapped then I think

4:13:25you know would I want faster you know access  to information. So so I I I I think there's you

4:13:36know reasons to consider this. I think there's  a lot of downsides as well. Um, and I I really

4:13:44appreciate the time that people have taken to come  in and share their views. I've learned a lot. So,

4:13:51I really hope that we can continue to discuss  this, but I would we might want to table that

4:13:59discussion, especially as it's getting late now  for another meeting. And I I also do and have

4:14:07questions about the finances as well. So, we might  want to have another discussion about that. Um,

4:14:13that's my suggestion. Thank you,  Councelor McKe. Councelor Hubley.

4:14:22Thank you, Chair. Um, because this is what  we ran on doing. We ran on being thorough.

4:14:30We ran on asking all the questions. We ran on not  rushing things through. So, we are having a series

4:14:37of meetings to go through the process. This is the  legislative process. It's slow and sometimes bumpy

4:14:45and sometimes you get impatient with it. That's  my answer. Um, but I have a few more things.

4:14:54Um, so Flock is a troubling company and I  think in my opinion and in part because of,

4:15:09you know, the way they've conducted themselves  business-wise, but also in part because of the,

4:15:14we'll say, the network architecture of the the  topology of their solution. their the topology

4:15:21of their solution is their advantage and their  challenge. So each camera powered by solar power

4:15:29which is pretty lightweight and easy to deploy.  You can put it almost anywhere. Doesn't require a

4:15:35Cat 6 cable run back to a PoE switch. Um setting  up of a network, maintaining of that network

4:15:42through hardened equipment which is expensive.  It has onboard storage because when it makes its

4:15:47probably HTTPS connection sending its metadata and  images up to the cloud. Uh it needs to buffer that

4:15:54in case the cell signal the LTE or 4G signal isn't  you know doesn't have connectivity. Um that leaves

4:16:00it vulnerable to be hacked for its onboard storage  and information. It's published to the cloud which

4:16:05is great because everyone can get to it but it's  also the challenge because everyone can get to it.

4:16:10Um and so there's a number of challenges that they  have and they're also um trying to monetize things

4:16:17beyond the obvious monetization strategy. It's  very similar to how um video companies uh also

4:16:25make money. I mean you pay your network Netflix  subscription, you pay your HBO subscription,

4:16:30you pay your whatever subscription and they  give you content and there's licensing for that

4:16:36and they make money that way. there's a you know  share the cable company or the delivery mechanism

4:16:40gets a share of that the content provider gets a  share of that so forth but then there's the usage

4:16:45information when I was in the cable television  business there was this thing called Neielen and

4:16:50Neielson made a great great amount of money and  they also got into the phone business oddly enough

4:16:55where they were doing phone carrier statistic  analysis um through different uh cable operators

4:17:00and different phone operators um and so there's a  they're they're doing something business-wise eyes

4:17:08and in doing so they're losing trust in my opinion  um by trying to you know monetize it and I think

4:17:15someone else also made a good point earlier and  they're a technology company and they're they're

4:17:18going at the speed that they can manage and  that opened you up to issues um so I think their

4:17:26advantage is their challenge it's opened them up  to some challenges technology-wise there are other

4:17:31types of systems that are more closed there are  systems that but they're more cumbersome to deploy

4:17:37they're more expensive to deploy. Um, and so and  they're they take longer to deploy and but the

4:17:43advantage is you can own all the equipment. You  can all the own all the storage devices. You can

4:17:48put it in your own facility. So you can secure  it up. You can there's different ways of doing

4:17:52this technology. Um, but you know Flock has  an advantage in its network topology and its

4:17:58architecture, but it's also its vulnerability.  Um, so I have a lot of concerns about Flock as

4:18:04a company. Um but and but I also have a lot  of concerns for privacy and um this is why in

4:18:12the the top of this meeting, one of the the the  last question I did at the top of the meeting was

4:18:18uh to get a sense for where we thought the  disposition of our legislative state legislature

4:18:23would be for tackling this. And because I think  really inevitably um anything the municipalities

4:18:29do at some point in time will be superseded by the  state legislature. uh and we'll just have to adapt

4:18:34to that. But you know, and I've spoken to two of  the three delegation members that represent us and

4:18:42um you know, hopefully we they things can  move along there. But in the meantime,

4:18:46this is our gig and this is our problem right  now. So um I'll just close with that. Thank you.

4:19:01Thank you, chair. I just want to follow up  with councelor McKe and councelor Huby. So

4:19:07my question is main about company. So uh council  McKe mentioned like this technology is some still

4:19:19useful that I I agree but my main concern is  since this company has been caught repeatedly

4:19:29like breach trust that's that's very concerning  like if the trust already lost then you can have

4:19:38all kinds of questions and We kind of like every  day just watching them to to see oh if they did

4:19:45something abnormal or some right you know so also  to councelor Huby this is not just oh some mistake

4:19:59happened during the technology development it's  not it's they lied so that's completely difference

4:20:08so for this If for if you are doing business with  some some company the trust already lost I just

4:20:17don't understand why we want to keep doing it like  and uh so I think the first step is we should stop

4:20:28cut a ties with this and reputable company  then next if administration discuss oh this

4:20:36technology is still useful or if we legislature  guard rail also develop it we really still can

4:20:46consider about it I didn't say oh completely  know this technology but I just think flock

4:20:53should go should go away and and also during this  time we can wait for like more information come

4:21:03people know better about this technology and the  protection are in place legislature ga are there

4:21:11then then can think about like another ARP company  and then we need um public uh discussion and the

4:21:26city council's approval that's that's my point  so we two steps first step we need a cut tie with

4:21:33this company it's not it's already approved and  trustful Why you still subject residents private

4:21:41information to this company? How long do you have  keep doing this? This is not about we don't want

4:21:50to do things carefully or something. I really  considered about resident private information.

4:22:01Chief, I just had one more question. I'm sorry.

4:22:09how much you know I know we have like x  amount of different contracts with flock

4:22:14because these cameras came on at different  times minus the well I guess I' I'd like

4:22:21to know how much we've actually spent I know  some of it's through grants and you can just

4:22:25you don't know the actual numbers maybe you  have an estimate but how much are we into

4:22:29flock for like the actual hardware and then  how much are we spending annually ually to

4:22:36maintain the whole thing. Yeah. On average,  it's uh about 3,000 per camera per year. Um

4:22:48and we have uh 49 APRs and one Condor  camera. So, what's that ballpark? Uh 150.

4:22:55And then 75% of that is paid through uh Homeland  Security urban area security initiative grant.

4:23:03So I'd say ballpark in here I think out of our  budget is around 50. Okay. All right. Thank you.

4:23:11I think um councelor Hubley had another question.  Yes. Thank you chair through you to council. Uh I

4:23:20think you misrepresented what I said. I didn't say  they made a mistake. I said they made a bunch of

4:23:25business decisions which lost trust. And they're  also a fast-paced growing company. So they will

4:23:31also have growing pains and make mistakes. So  not naive to their their business strategy and

4:23:36how that has lost trust. So I'd appreciate if you  wouldn't misrepresent what I'm saying. That's all.

4:23:45Okay. Great. So what do you want to say?

4:23:55Follow questions. Go ahead. I'm gonna try to get  this out. I think we have follow-up questions that

4:24:01that are not going to be answered here tonight.  You just asked about financing. I have financing

4:24:04questions. I I can't go into that tonight. Um I  I'd like to know like some of the questions that

4:24:10we I think we have follow I going to have follow  follow-up questions to the chief and potentially

4:24:14even to some of the special guests that we've  had tonight. But I think we have to get into the

4:24:18discussion too is also like what's you know what  are the legal premifications if we get out of are

4:24:23they leased or do we own them? Are we in a lease  situation? We in a lease situation. Are we in a

4:24:30lease situation? Yes. Yes, we lease the cameras.  Yeah. So, so we're into observe if if if we were

4:24:38to cancel block, we would still pay have to pay  out the the lease until the contract expires.

4:24:45That's something for I would say for the solicitor  that uh but so I guess my understanding is yes,

4:24:50that's what I'm saying. There's some there's  some outstanding questions that we have to

4:24:53get answered before we can actually go to the  next step which is the financial cost of it,

4:24:57the legal parameters around it and just  follow some of those questions. I don't

4:25:02have an energy to do that tonight. Right.  Thank you. I have one more meeting to go

4:25:06to tomorrow. All right. So, I just want  to say um one last thing here. You know,

4:25:13Quinsey is a safe community and it is a multitude  of different factors. the people that live here,

4:25:20the the community members that that work  here and serve us here. Um, you know,

4:25:25I grew up here in Quinsey in How's Neck. My wife  did not. She grew up in a neighboring community.

4:25:31I won't name that community, but when we moved  to our house in House Neck, I'll never forget,

4:25:39we're painting the whole house up and down,  floor, se floor, walls, ceiling, all that stuff,

4:25:44right? So, it smelled in the house. So, of course,  I opened the windows and I left them open. Now,

4:25:51where she had lived in the previous town, she  lived on the third floor. So, we did sleep with

4:25:55the windows open. But when we were at our house  in house neck on the first floor, she said,

4:26:01"You got to close those windows." And I was like,  "What are you talking about?" And she goes, "Well,

4:26:06someone could break into the house. Someone could  climb in through the window." I'm like, "What are

4:26:09you talking about?" Growing up here in Quinsey,  living in How's Neck, I never gave that a thought.

4:26:16But there are communities very near to us that  people do live like that. And it's not a it's not

4:26:24every community. Another reason I I moved or chose  to continue to live in Quinsey, I should say,

4:26:29is when you call 911. When I called 911 as a kid,  I got Janice McGee and she was my neighbor of

4:26:36mine. And no matter what, it was always somebody  you knew. It was somebody you knew that you could

4:26:40trust on the other end of the phone. the the  person who came into your house from the police

4:26:46car. I'll never forget during COVID on my son's  first birthday. Uh my wife fainted. We're getting

4:26:53ready for work and she had COVID and the flu and  Jim McCarthy, a house neck firefighter. I carried

4:26:59her down the stairs and that doesn't happen  everywhere. And and it's happening in fewer

4:27:05and fewer places, but it's still like that here  in Quinsey. I'll never forget when my wife first

4:27:11voted in Quinsey and she's a voter. She always  voted and she said to me, and this was when I was

4:27:17uh living over on in West Quinzy after we voted,  she goes, "That was so weird." And I said, "What?"

4:27:24She goes, "I knew and have met every single person  I just voted for." And she was like, "I've been

4:27:30voting for years and I never talked to anybody  I ever voted for." And you know, that's the kind

4:27:36of community we live in. Just like the chief  said, it's a community and it's built on trust

4:27:42in the police department, the firefighters, our  elected officials. They've all earned that trust

4:27:47because they go out and make the effort to do so.  That's all I wanted to end this meeting. So, I'm

4:27:55going to ask for a motion to adjoin this oversight  committee meeting at 10:30. Motion made by Walter

4:28:02Huby. Looking for a second. Deborah Riley, thank  you. W six. And uh thank you. And we're going to

4:28:07just go back into the public hearing very quickly  because that's still ongoing. And I'm going to

4:28:12close the public hearing seeing as there's no  more speakers. Can I have a motion to close the

4:28:16public hearing by and then seconded by Walter  Huby. Thank you so much. Have a great night.