Controversial Flock Cameras to be Removed from South Portland Amid Privacy Concerns and Republican Push to Ban Them Statewide
Publish Date: 2026-06-16 11:28:00
Source Domain: www.themainewire.com
The South Portland City Council voted Thursday to immediately terminate the city’s contract with Flock Safety, a controversial surveillance company best known for its AI-enabled Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras that collect and store information on passing vehicles.
[RELATED: Maine Gets Flocked With New Camera Rollout Despite No Citizen Input…]
“The problem is with Flock itself. Flock retains the data. It may anonymize it; however, it is for AI education, and it is also shared. It is a big debate at the federal level right now,” said Councilor Rachel Coleman.
“To me, it’s a matter of the ends do not justify the means. This is an excellent tool the way our police force is using it and it is, like, state of the art, however, they’re also collecting data that causes harm to everyone, to each one of us,” she added.
The council ultimately voted 4-2 to end the city’s contract with Flock. It has immediately ceased use of its existing cameras and has submitted a work order for their removal.
The city first approved the Flock contract last year using a federal Justice Assistance Grant (JAG). Though the AI-powered surveillance cameras are marketed as a tool for public safety, they have drawn nationwide privacy concerns about the possibility of unprecedented government or corporate knowledge of individual habits and whereabouts.
The South Portland Police Department has advocated for their continued use, and has been waging a social media campaign in their favor, by posting about how they have been used recently to apprehend criminals, and even to rescue an abducted 12-year-old girl.
Councilors expressed their trust for the police but maintained concerns over how the data is used by Flock itself or other parties with access to the data it gathers.
“We don’t have real control of this data, so we don’t know actually what is going to happen with it in the future. We’ve heard folks say that there’s a…
