NPD defends Flock use

Norwood Police Department (NPD) Chief Christopher Padden spoke at the Tuesday Board of Selectmen meeting at length about the department’s interactions and agreements with Flock Safety, the controversial camera operator.

Flock has come under fire over the last few years for data privacy concerns around several points, but the main issue is that it is a vast network of tens of thousands of cameras in the United States primarily designed to read license plates.

While the company does have cameras that can track people using either an operator or an AI Large Language Model agent – called Pan Tilt Zoom (PTZ) cameras – those were not the subject of Norwood’s involvement (though they have been proven vulnerable to outside actors – https://gvimes.link/flckvln )

Norwood has 16 License Plate Reader Cameras (LPR) located primarily on the gateways to the Town. Padden said this is useful for police, as it allows them to track vehicles associated with crimes.

“So when we have a crime occur, that gives us the ability to see if that car has been in Town, where it’s been, where it’s gone, and things along those lines,” he said, adding that there is a “hot list” feature that Flock allows departments to use that will ping departments if a vehicle known to be associated with crime comes into Town. “We can put a plate into the system for a car, and if we have a wanted person we know is dealing drugs, when that car comes into Town we know they’re in Town. Same with a violent crime or domestic violence, which is a big one we get. We’ll have someone commit domestic violence on their partner and flee Norwood because they live in Brockton, Boston or wherever it is, and when they come back into Town and pass one of our cameras, we’ll get a notification with the hopes that they won’t come back and do some terrible harm to that particular person.”

Padden said the department used and still uses traffic cameras around Town to help solve crimes, and he said those cameras have been useful in helping to solve major crimes over the last six years, including a murder in 2021. But he said recent upticks in crime prompted the department to look into more options. Those upticks took place over the course of 2025, and they included, according to Padden, a juvenile in possession of a large capacity firearm in April; a juvenile in possession of a large capacity feeding device, ammunition and drugs in July; a juvenile in possession of a large capacity firearm and ammunition in September; a shooting and robbery in September; a shooting and assault with a firearm in September; a carjacking and robbery in October; a mass robbery that recovered three firearms in November; and a murder on Hoyle Street in November.

“They demonstrated something we really couldn’t just ignore – and this isn’t just Norwood – these are things we’re seeing across the board in Eastern Massachusetts: juveniles, firearms, all those types of things are increasing,” he said. “And we had never seen this before here in Norwood. So we asked ourselves what could we do to increase what tools we’re using in order to solve these crimes? What could we give our officers to have better chances to solve these crimes? Our existing traffic cameras had proven their value during all of these investigations, but they were primarily reactive in their manner of use.”

Padden said they returned to a technology they had used before, LPRs, but he did note they had used a mobile LPR back in the 2000s to check parking lots and that kind of thing.

Padden said when the department was looking at options for LPRs, they chose Flock.

“Flock was the choice for us because they have the largest network of information out there,” he said. “It’s not necessarily just for Norwood, it’s from the region or from New England or other places.”

Padden said the department limits its data sharing to departments in New York and New England. He was adamant that the department had strict controls with data sharing with other departments within that region.

He noted Flock has an imminent danger clause, however, where it will share data to the FBI or federal agencies if there is an imminent threat. He said, however that since immigration is a civil matter, that is not an imminent threat and wouldn’t be shared. Same with reproductive rights issues. But an imminent threat is something where the public is in imminent danger of violence.

“And this is in every Department’s terms of service, it says if there is an imminent risk of harm, they will share with other agencies, and I will use the example of the Boston Marathon Bombing,” he said. “If the FBI went to Flock and said, ‘We need this data, there is an imminent risk of harm or of national security,’ Flock would hand that over, and so would practically every other company.”

Padden said Flock will delete Norwood’s data after 14 days, seven more days than the company’s own recommendation – https://gvimes.link/flkgdlns

Padden also stipulated that each plate reader does not automatically associate that plate with a user, and that a searching police officer would have to use another database to access that information.

When it comes to data sharing, Padden said the department opted to not allow the department’s data to be shared beyond New England and New York, and that Flock would agree not to share or sell anonymized data.

“The data is ours and it remains ours; knocking off a little data doesn’t change that,” he said.

The Flock system apparently only allows access to its cameras to a department with which Norwood has agreed to share them. However, the ACLU states it doesn’t believe Flock really has a way to stop that department – or any department really – from sharing that video outside of the prescribed network of the originating entity – https://gvimes.link/lbunflck

The above article also details numerous problems Flock has had with the ACLU, including two instances where the company apparently seemed to say that the ACLU had partnered with the company, when there was no such collaboration.

The ACLU detailed several instances where Flock either misrepresented or was flat out wrong about its own policies, including sharing data with federal law enforcement and its search-filtering practices designed to keep abortion-related queries and immigration queries out of the system.

Selectman Amanda Grow posed several security-related questions to Padden that she gleaned from the user agreement the department keeps with Flock, including that of who is responsible if there is a data breach and Norwood’s cameras are compromised.

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“I was concerned about some of the contractual stuff they have been updating, because it did things like pass liability for data breaches onto the municipality instead of onto the company or things like that,” she said.

“We don’t have any data, so we can’t have a breach of data,” Padden said. “So if something’s breached, it’s not on our end, because we’re not maintaining it. It’s basically in the Cloud, and it’s their Cloud.”

“Even though it’s their Cloud, they’re structuring their agreements to say, ‘Yes it’s our Cloud, but it’s still your liability,’ and I wanted to make sure we’re not in that scenario,” Grow said.

“For the life of me, I just couldn’t imagine how that would end up with liability to the Town,” Padden said. “I’ll look at the Terms of Service again.”

Grow also asked about testing for vulnerabilities that would allow unauthorized users to enter the system. Padden said officers have to use a two-factor authentication to sign in to the database, but he said he didn’t know what security Flock uses on its end.

“To my understanding, they have not been hacked,” he said.

Flock’s database itself has not reported to have been hacked and Flock states on its website that it hasn’t been hacked, but there have been several instances of security writers reportedly hacking into Flock cameras, accessing about a month’s worth of footage, and being able to delete footage at will – https://gvimes.link/flkcmsvln

Security writer and musician Ben Jordan released a video detailing how to do this last year – https://gvimes.link/flkbnjrdn – and other exploits have reportedly been found and detailed by hacker Jon Gaines – https://gvimes.link/gainesflck

Padden said the department will be meeting with residents in the coming weeks to go over their concerns.

“We’re going to to be looking at this program this year and every year to see whether or not it’s worth the money, are we getting the bang for our buck, is it something the community wants to continue, something that the community wants, and whether it helped to address our public safety objectives,” he said. “I would say that it has.”