Salem, MA
Salem Mayor Dominick Pangallo announced on July 23, 2026 that the city would not renew its contract with Flock Safety, which had expired June 30, 2026. Pangallo said "The city has determined that there are insufficient protections for the ALPR data generated by Flock's systems" and that such data "should be owned and used only in furtherance of Salem's public safety priorities." The Flock cameras had gone out of use on July 1.
What moved this decision
- Insufficient protections for ALPR data under Flock’s terms
- An ACLU of Massachusetts-supported analysis of Flock audits found law enforcement searched Salem’s data for reasons labeled “immigration” or “ICE” at least 230 times within two months in 2025
- City preference for owning its own ALPR data
What happened afterwards
Salem did not abandon license plate readers. New readers owned and operated by the city were installed at high-traffic locations, replacing the Flock system. This makes Salem, alongside Syracuse NY, one of the clearest cases where a Flock cancellation was a change of data custody rather than a retreat from ALPR surveillance.
What we still don’t know
These are the records we would need to describe this decision completely. If you can help obtain them, or already have them, get in touch.
- What vendor supplies the city-owned replacement readers and what its data-sharing terms are
- Whether Salem adopted a written retention and query-audit policy for the replacement system