(June 5, 2026) – As questions arise about Flock Safety cameras in Ayer, residents in two nearby communities are also concerned about the license plate reader technology.
On Tuesday, Ayer’s police chief answered a few questions about Flock cameras at the Select Board meeting. He said the department wants to put questions and answers online.
At this same meeting, the Town Manager said the target date for this is June 8th, next Monday and the Select Board could have the police chief back at their June 16th meeting.
Then, on Thursday night, an Ayer resident shared a link to an informational website on a Facebook social media forum, with materials accessed through a town public records request.
Meanwhile, NBC Boston also reported this week that Framingham is reviewing its contract language with Flock Safety company. The communities of Cambridge, Watertown and Natick have cancelled contracts.
Closer to Ayer, on May 12th, the Littleton Select Board announced that power to the town’s Flock Safety cameras had been disconnected. This was called a temporary deactivation to allow the board “to review the technology and evaluate potential policy considerations.”
The notice further stated that the board would continue “to receive and consider public comment throughout the ongoing review process and provide updates through official Town communication channels.”
Another local story: On May 2nd, Groton’s Annual Town Meeting approved an amendment to remove funding for the Flock cameras out of the capital budget article, according to the Groton Channel coverage.
The Groton Select Board later voted 4-1 to move ahead when the police chief said he would fund the cameras from the department’s budget. The one member who voted against spoke about the need to respect the Town Meeting vote (Groton Herald coverage).
Note: As for the resident’s website link, we’re not going to share this right now because we have not fully reviewed the website. We write this after business hours and cannot contact the Town of Ayer for comment. And finally, as a local news project, we don’t want to share emails directly because this will impact our ability to gather news. We need time to review and summarize materials.