Boston ends Flock contract after vendor error shared data nationwide
Boston officials terminated their agreement with Flock Safety last week after the company accidentally shared license plate data across the country.
Contract violation discovered early
The city government abandoned its license-plate reader cameras because the vendor enabled a nationwide lookup feature by mistake. This error occurred during the first few days of a pilot program that ran from April to September last year. The contract explicitly required that data sharing remain disabled and access be restricted to trained Boston Police Department personnel.
Mayor confirms termination publicly
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu stated during her monthly news segment that the city has actually abandoned Flock Safety. She made this announcement shortly before the release of the annual surveillance technology report covering 2025 activities. The report confirmed that BPD became aware of the unauthorized access within three days of starting the pilot.
Immediate action taken
Upon learning of the vendor error, the police department ensured the function was immediately disabled. Access to the collected vehicle information is no longer available without proper authorization from the department. The annual report describes this incident as a specific vendor error rather than an intentional breach.
Reported by one outlet
Only one outlet has published this. Nothing here has been checked against a second report, so read it as that outlet's account and follow the link below for the original.
Reported by
1 independent outlet. Headline as published. Links open the original report.