South Portland will stop using Flock cameras

 A Flock camera is located on a pole at Cash Corner in South Portland. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer) South Portland will get rid of its Flock cameras.  The South Portland City Council voted 5-2 Thursday night to immediately end the city’s use of the automatic license plate reading devices even though the contract with Flock expires in February 2027.   Five councilors said that there are too many unknowns about the data security, access and use within the nationwide network to continue using the cameras. Councilors Natalie West and Richard Matthews said that the tools are too valuable for the police department and public safety to give up.  “We don’t know enough about this stuff,” Councilor Misha Pride said. “We don’t know where (the data) is going to go.” City Manager Scott Morelli said that the cameras are no longer sharing data with other agencies in the state and that he will try to get Flock contractors to take the cameras down as soon as possible.  Residents in the city hall chambers cheered. Advertisement This decision came a few months after the police department requested $26,000 to extend the contract with Flock Safety through February 2028 and add an additional camera. The city [withdrew the budget request](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/05/12/south-portland-withdraws-request-for-additional-flock-camera/) and scheduled a public workshop following mounting public concern over their use.  The city has seven Flock cameras — two near Interstate 295 by Pape Chevrolet, two on Western Avenue by Maine Mall Road, two at Cash Corner and one on Maine Mall Road — that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to scan and log the license plate, model, color and other identifying information, like bumper stickers, of every vehicle that passes through their field of view. Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company that contracts with more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, has come under fire over who has access to the data it collects. A report last year found that the company shared [data with federal immigration and border authorities](https://www.404media.co/cbp-had-access-to-more-than-80-000-flock-ai-cameras-nationwide/). There have been no reported instances of misuse of the technology in South Portland, said Shara Dee, the city’s spokesperson. Police Chief Daniel Ahern said that this technology is one of a kind and instrumental in helping the force identify an online child predator and locate suspects in a bank robbery and a shooting. But many residents object to the cameras, with concerns about who has access to the city’s data and whether the police department can be certain about the system’s security.  More than 75 people, mostly wearing black, gathered in the grassy yard outside city hall before the workshop. In the absence of an official public comment period, opponents to the cameras organized what they called the “People’s Public Comment.” Advertisement The first installment of the workshop on May 19 [adjourned after nearly two hours of public comment](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/05/20/south-portland-still-undecided-about-future-of-flock-cameras/) with a failed motion to disable the cameras until the council made its decision about the future of Flock cameras in the city.  In the meantime, the South Portland Police department decided to [stop sharing Flock data with national databases](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/05/28/south-portland-limits-flock-data-sharing-to-maine-agencies/), limiting searches to state agencies.  Days before the workshop continued on June 11, the city answered [more than 50 questions](https://southportland-gov.community.diligentoneplatform.com/document/38076daf-be22-45ac-ab18-19b7f96797a6/) posed during the May 19 workshop’s public comment section and conducted its [own audit](https://southportland-gov.community.diligentoneplatform.com/document/9d70cca1-180d-4a47-a702-52af619d2310/) of about 4.5 million external searches of the Flock network nationwide between February 2025 and May 2026.  Staff recommended continued use of the technology with additional safeguards.  City staff said that its audit of the Flock network indicates that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not have direct access to South Portland data. The city disabled the ability for partner agencies to search for immigration-related purposes on April 15, a day after members of the public raised concerns about Flock technology at the city’s first budget workshop. Staff said it didn’t find any searches for reproductive health-related investigations or enforcement before and after that date.   An ICE agent based in the Massachusetts field office told Detective Jeff Levesque on May 21 that their office and agency has never accessed South Portland’s Flock data. Advertisement Alex Redfield, an organizer with No Flock for SoPo, said that it was concerning to learn that external agencies could search South Portland data with terms like “immigration” and “abortion” prior to April 15, especially when the police department gave reassurances about the security of the data. There were 1,800 searches explicitly related to immigrants in the nationwide Flock network, according to the city’s audit. The Department of Homeland Security conducted more than 1,450 searches since February 2025. Dee said there were two unnamed federal agencies — neither of which was ICE or Homeland Security Investigations — that conducted searches in June 2025 and January 2026. The audit does not make it clear whether the searches were conducted in South Portland or nationally. City staff also said that the Flock audits do not show whether South Portland data was returned, viewed or downloaded in nationwide searches, so the city can’t independently verify if a search actually drew upon South Portland data.   “If any member of the public has information that South Portland Flock data was utilized by an outside agency, we welcome reviewing that information,” according to the city’s document answering the public’s questions.  Organizers with No Flock for South Portland said this admission speaks to a lack of control of the data.  “The only way to ensure our data isn’t used for immigration enforcement is to not collect it in the first place,” said Shelby Leighton, an organizer with No Flock for SoPo.  No Flock for SoPo wants more transparency about the city’s Flock data and who has accessed it.  Redfield said that the group is prepared to take legal action to obtain data any time an external search used South Portland cameras or any time Flock permissions or settings changed.  Search records of automatic license plate readers are confidential under state law, so the city cannot release the names of agencies associated with specific searches, Dee said. However, other police departments in Maine, like Falmouth, have released network logs, which show who searched the system and when, in response to freedom of information requests.  Copy the Story Link Tagged: [South Portland City Council](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/south-portland-city-council/), [south portland police department](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/south-portland-police-department/) [](https://www.pressherald.com/author/dana-richie) [Dana RichieStaff Writer](https://www.pressherald.com/author/dana-richie) Dana Richie is a community reporter covering South Portland and Cape Elizabeth. Originally from Atlanta, she fell in love with the landscape and quirks of coastal New England while completing her undergraduate. [More by Dana Richie](https://www.pressherald.com/author/dana-richie)