Police in Berlin, Connecticut, are defending their use of a new Flock license plate reader system, which costs the town $36,000 annually. The department highlights its successes, including locating a missing elderly man with memory issues and identifying 103 stolen cars in a single month. Officials stress the cameras only capture license plates, not personal identifying information, and are not used for traffic enforcement like red light or speed violations.
However, civil rights groups, specifically the ACLU of Connecticut, are raising significant privacy concerns. They argue that such systems turn ordinary travel into a form of mass government surveillance, threatening the fundamental right of people to move freely without being tracked. Police maintain that plates are only cross-referenced in connection with active investigations, but the ACLU remains wary of the technology’s broader implications for civil liberties.