Residents press Public Safety Task Force to toss Flock cameras

The debate over Southold’s use of Flock license plate reader cameras reared up at an April 7 Town Board meeting, with residents pressing officials to rethink the technology. 

Greenport resident Seth Egan, who launched a petition in January condemning immigration enforcement on the North Fork, raised concerns about oversight and transparency as officials outlined early work by the Public Safety Task Force.

Town Supervisor Al Krupski noted that people are constantly tracked in one way or another, holding up his cellphone to emphasize his point.

“Is there any place you can go that somebody doesn’t have a camera on their porch that you walk by and they can see you?” Mr. Krupski said.

He described such surveillance as part of a “changing world,” while acknowledging concerns about how the systems are used.

Privacy concerns about the cameras have persisted for months.

Local photojournalist and Suffolk Times contributor Jeremy Garretson urged the Town Board at the April 7 meeting to remove the cameras, citing worries about data storage and their use as a “surveillance” tool.

“History has shown that a heavily surveillanced society does not build trust, it does the opposite,” he said. “And I don’t think that’s what the North Fork stands for. We’re a neighborly community.”

Police Chief Steve Grattan maintained that the cameras are a limited investigative tool, not a form of broad surveillance. Last December, Chief Grattan said the cameras capture “still images of license plates and limited vehicle details” and are monitored by department dispatch personnel.

“That’s the only use that our Flock cameras provide,” Chief Grattan reiterated to The Suffolk Times in a phone interview April 10.

He said the system does not use facial recognition, track individuals or provide live video. Instead, vehicles tied to a missing person case, stolen car or fleeing suspect can be flagged through a “hot list,” triggering alerts to officers.

“The dispatchers don’t search through the data — they get alerts,” he said.

Chief Grattan pointed to recent cases where the system helped locate a missing 78-year-old Orient woman with dementia in Maryland and track a stolen vehicle from the Cross Sound Ferry parking lot.

“There’s a long list of success stories with those cameras,” Chief Grattan said.

Chief Grattan said camera data can be searched for up to 30 days before it is automatically deleted and is stored locally. According to Flock Safety’s website, footage is stored using Amazon Web Services cloud storage and KMS-base encryption, which limits access to the encryption keys.

“When we share with another agency, they can search our cameras and access that data,” he said.

Mr. Garretson said the department’s explanation of the system in the December 2025 statement read like “a Flock Safety sales pitch.”

“The justification for having them doesn’t seem to make sense to me,” he said.

The department purchased three of the $3,000 cameras using LETECH grant funding, while eight were donated by the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office.

The first Flock cameras in Southold were installed in late 2022, with two stationed along Route 25 in Mattituck and two along Sound Avenue in Mattituck, Chief Grattan said. Additional cameras were installed last year, with two along Route 48 in Southold, two along Route 25 in Southold, two on Main Road in Greenport and one on Main Road in East Marion.

According to records, Southold police has taken 20 stolen vehicle and 45 missing persons reports in the past five years. Chief Grattan did not have information as to how many of those reports were resolved using Flock cameras.

The Public Safety Task Force was formed Feb. 10 following the Feb. 4 detention of three longtime North Fork residents by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and broader calls for local guidance on how officials should respond to federal enforcement actions.

The task force includes Councilman Brian Mealy and Councilwoman Jill Doherty, Chief Grattan and another police department member, police advisory committee vice chairman Kevin Foote, a member of the town’s Anti-Bias Task Force, a local school district representative, a Greenport village representative and a community member.

“Safety is at the center of what we’re trying to talk about,” Mr. Mealy said. 

The task force’s first meeting focused on federal law and understanding that the town and local police can’t supersede it, Ms. Doherty said. She added that when creating policy or legislation, she cautioned that the task force account for any “unintended consequences” that might make officers unsafe. 

“That’s our responsibility to make sure they have a safe surrounding when they work,” Ms. Doherty said.

Councilwoman Alexa Suess said the task force “is and should be” looking at options beyond legislation “in the recognition that our legislative options might be limited.”

How local police and the town respond to immigration enforcement in Southold and what can be worked on is something Mr. Mealy said the task force is evaluating during its meetings.

“That’s not easy to do,” he said. “But in earnest, we’re really trying to get after that and say ‘Hey, how do we keep our communities safe?’ when you have a lack of national guidance. There’s a lack of state guidance, and in some way we’re going to talk about some of the state initiatives that might cover us.”

The task force will meet again before creating a statement delineating its work to present to the Town Board at a future meeting.