The Select Board on Tuesday heard concerns about the Hopkinton Police Department’s use of Flock cameras to capture license plate and vehicle data. It also learned about the progress made by the committee in charge of reviewing police chief candidates.

Flock cameras utilize artificial intelligence to scan license plates. They also capture vehicle details, such as make, model and color.

Two cameras were installed in town — one on Hayden Rowe Street and the other on West Main Street near Interstate 495. Two more are planned, according to interim Police Chief Scott van Raalten.

“I was concerned that these cameras had been deployed without anyone’s knowledge,” said resident Amy Groves during the public comment period.

The Select Board should be notified about any camera deployment, she said, adding that there also should be a mechanism to audit HPD searches.

As a private company, Flock Safety potentially could share the data it captures with other entities, added Groves. This raised concerns about public surveillance and invasion of privacy. 

Groves also discussed possible Fourth Amendment violations and potential data sharing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Resident Sravan Krishna echoed Groves’ fear of the potential for ICE data usage. He noted that the board placed ICE activity in Massachusetts as a future agenda item in February, but it has not acted on it yet.

Krishna raised the recent killings by ICE agents in Maine and Texas as reasons to move the discussion forward.

Interim chief provides details

Chair Shahidul Mannan explained that this was a “warm-up discussion” on the use of Flock cameras. Residents can voice opinions at follow-up meetings.

Added Mannan: “I wanted to make sure we pay the right attention and hear the full story from the authorities so there’s no confusion, full transparency and full understanding.”

Van Raalten explained that the Flock system has been around for about a decade. The HPD began looking into it about 1 1/2 years ago “in the interest of expanding our ability to investigate crimes.”

The Flock camera locations were “mapped out” taking traffic volume and camera placement in neighboring communities into consideration, he added.

Concerns have arisen about the data captured, how long it is held and who can access it, van Raalten explained.

The town’s policy with Flock Safety is “directly related to license plate readers,” he noted. Two cameras have been “up and running” for the past four months. Two more cameras are slated to be installed, pending landowner permission.

“We feel as though we have a robust policy that would address any malfeasance amongst our users,” said van Raalten. “In order to do a search for a vehicle, you need to basically spell out reasonable suspicion.”

Reasonable suspicion is the threshold for granting a subpoena, he added. This is the same for data requests to the state’s E-ZPass system.

The interim chief stressed that information is only shared with Massachusetts communities that have Flock agreements.

Added van Raalten: “We do not share with private entities, federal government or any out-of-state law enforcement organizations.”

The cameras have been helpful “as an investigative tool.”

“We could have reached the same conclusion without using the Flock system,” said van Raalten. “But it saved us hundreds of hours of investigative work to get to that result.”

Members voice feedback

Mannan said there needed to be a balance between using the cameras to solve crimes and the protection of people’s privacy.

“It just kind of came as a surprise to all of us that we didn’t know what had been happening,” added member Amy Ritterbusch.

Vice chair Matthew Kizner stressed that the HPD has “done nothing wrong” and did not purchase the cameras with taxpayer dollars. They were bought using asset forfeiture money obtained via investigations.

But he noted that “just because they have an agreement with you today does not mean that they’re not going to sell the data.”

Police chief search moves forward

Kizner updated the board on the Police Chief Screening Committee. He described members as a “very diverse” group “focused on a wide array of things.”

Twenty police chief candidates made it through the initial screening, but one withdrew from consideration.

The committee screened 10 “anonymized” resumes to prevent any bias. The remaining nine will be reviewed shortly, Kizner said.

Those who move on to the next screening process will have a written and verbal review. The remaining group of up to 13 candidates will meet with senior town staff. Those candidates will spend a day at the police assessment center.

The final group tentatively will appear before the Select Board “by the end of August,” according to Kizner.

Kizner requested that an earlier community survey be reposted on the town website to capture more resident input. An item about ICE responses will be included.