07/10/2026
Surveillance in Brookline - read the latest about how Flock license plate readers have been quietly installed near a Star Market grocery store.
Fatema Ahmad, executive director of the Muslim Justice League , a Massachusetts-based civil rights organization that advocates against government surveillance and intelligence-gathering programs, said the term “license plate reader” can be misleading because modern systems often collect far more information than a vehicle’s registration number.
“People should really think about them as AI car trackers,” Ahmad said.
In addition to reading license plates, Ahmad said many modern systems can identify a vehicle’s make, model, color and other distinguishing characteristics while creating a record of where and when it was observed.
“We know that private companies generally tend to be perfectly willing and often quite eager to hand over surveillance data to whoever asks for it,” Ahmad said.
As an example, Ahmad pointed to reports about the use of automatic license plate reader data by the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, or BRIC, a law enforcement “fusion center” or intelligence-sharing hub serving nine communities across the greater Boston area. While there is no indication that the Star Market cameras are connected to BRIC’s network, Ahmad said the existence of such systems illustrates why privacy advocates pay close attention to new ALPR installations.
