Mass. has over 1,200 license plate readers. Here's where they are.
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About 140,000 automated license plate readers, including thousands of Flock cameras, are installed across the U.S., according to this publicly available data.
Why it matters: These cameras can help police find stolen cars and wanted people, but their ability to track all vehicles all the time has fueled a growing privacy backlash and calls for tighter oversight or removal.
Friction point: The debate is intensifying as some communities reconsider or remove the cameras amid concerns about surveillance and instances of misuse.
State of play: A growing number of cities and towns have voted to ban Flock cameras, including Abington, Ayer, Stow and Groton, per Boston.com.
- In Stow, police placed an officer on leave after receiving a complaint that he was using Flock cameras to track someone he knows, which state law prohibits, NBC Boston reported.
- He resigned before a termination hearing in late August.
- New Bedford temporarily paused using its Flock cameras after an officer was accused of using Flock to stalk his ex-girlfriend. (The officer's attorney says the ex's car and another driver, not the ex, were the target of the investigation, per NBC Boston.)
By the numbers: Massachusetts has more than 1,200 cameras logged on the Finding Flock map.
- Middlesex County has the most license plate readers in the state at 252, followed by Norfolk County (220) and Essex County (173).
- These counties are home to some of the state's wealthiest suburbs, but they're also home to low- and middle-income communities of color and immigrant communities, including Malden, Quincy, Randolph and Lynn.
Zoom out: Harris County, Texas, home to Houston, has the most cameras of any county, with 4,000 across the county of nearly 5 million people.
In Massachusetts, roughly 990 of the automated license plate readers are Flock cameras.
- The others are cameras by Motorola Solutions, Raytheon, Arizona-based Taser maker Axon Enterprise, and other companies.
The bottom line: Cities and towns are weighing the future of automated license plate readers and other surveillance tools, but these tools are already active across Massachusetts.