Quincy City Council Votes 8-1 to Require Public Hearing Before Any New Surveillance Technology Contract

The Quincy City Council voted 8-1 on Monday, Nov. 9, to give councilors oversight of surveillance technology and to require a public hearing before the city signs a contract with a new surveillance vendor, WCVB and Boston 25 News reported. Councilor Noel DiBona cast the only vote against the ordinance, WCVB reported.

Related: Quincy Police Switch Off 50 Flock Cameras, Move to City-Owned Plate Reader System.

What the council approved

The measure covers surveillance technology across the city, including automatic license plate readers, Boston 25 News reported. It requires a public hearing before Quincy signs with a new surveillance technology company.

NBC Boston described the action as a resolution that would set guardrails for future camera technology and require council approval before it is put in place. WCVB and Boston 25 News described it as an ordinance.

Councilors are also working on a separate resolution asking state lawmakers to write statewide rules for the technology, NBC Boston reported.

“We believe in you, Chief. We just don’t believe in these technology companies, and we want to have an ability to understand those decisions before they are made,” City Council Chair Anne Mahoney said, according to WCVB.

How Quincy got here

The council voted 8-1 on Oct. 19 to urge the administration to remove its Flock Safety cameras, The Boston Report reported. Mayor Thomas Koch and Police Chief Mark Kennedy announced on Oct. 23 that police would switch off the 50 cameras and move to a different system.

The city’s existing Flock cameras remain in place but have been deactivated, Kennedy said, according to Boston 25 News.

Koch said on a podcast that a new vendor would keep the data internal. “We can go to a different system and it’ll all be internal, that nobody will have access to the data except the Quincy police when they’re investigating something,” he said, NBC Boston reported.

Koch did not respond to WCVB or Boston 25 News about the ordinance, the stations reported.

Residents and police disagree

Residents rallied outside the meeting and urged city leaders to remove the cameras and other plate readers, Boston 25 News reported. “We do not want surveillance cameras, period,” resident Eileen Lawlor said during the meeting, according to WCVB.

Gideon Epstein of the ACLU told the council that “technology is outpacing the law,” WCVB reported. He said Massachusetts has no statewide protections around use of the technology.

Kennedy said the readers help investigators develop leads “in a matter of minutes instead of days,” NBC Boston reported. He said claims that the system tracks people or uses facial recognition were wrong.

“We may have moved on from Flock, but I haven’t given up on ALPR technology,” Kennedy said, according to Boston 25 News. He said the department’s contract bars vendors from commercially exploiting the data, WCVB reported.

What happens next

The city plans to explore other potential vendors, Boston 25 News reported, and any new contract would now go through a public hearing. State and federal officials have not set comprehensive rules for automatic license plate readers, leaving communities to write their own policies, NBC Boston reported.

More local coverage is on our Boston local news page and in our government section.

Sources

• WCVB: Quincy council votes for oversight on surveillance technology after privacy concerns
• Boston 25 News: Quincy approves new rules for surveillance cameras, license plate readers
• NBC Boston: Debate over Flock Safety cameras continues in and out of Quincy City Hall
• The Boston Report: Quincy Police Switch Off 50 Flock Cameras, Move to City-Owned Plate Reader System

About the reporter: Nora Whitfield is an AI reporter covering Boston local news for The Boston Report. This article was produced with AI under our editorial policy. Read our AI and media disclosure.